Early history of Cambodia

Prehistoric Cambodia is sparsely known.The earliest known site in Cambodia is Laang Spean cave which occupies the country's northwestregion. Laang Spean cave was firstoccupied beginning in 7000 BCE Also of significance is the site Samrong Sen whichwas occupied circa 230 to 500 BCE. From 2000 BCE. and beyond, Cambodians started to domesticate animals and started growing rice. By, 600 BCE, Cambodians were making iron tools. Lastly influences from India came in 100 BCE.

Archaeological evidence indicates that parts of the region now called Cambodia were inhabited during the first and second millennia BCE by a Neolithic culture that may have migrated from southeastern China to the Indochinese Peninsula. By the 1st century CE the inhabitants had developed relatively stable, organized societies which had far surpassed the primitive stage inculture andtechnicalskills. The most advanced groups lived along the coast andinthe lower MekongRiver valley and delta regions where they cultivated rice and kept domesticated animals. Some historians speculate that these people arrived before their present Vietnamese, Thai, and Lao neighbors. These people may have been Austroasiatic in origin and related to the ancestors ofthe groupswhonow inhabit insular Southeast Asia and many of the islandsofthe Pacific Ocean. They worked metals, including iron and bronze,and possessed navigational skills. Recent research has unlocked the discovery of artificialcircular earthworks dating to Cambodia's Neolithic era.