I decided to look at the most unseemly of the jig-saw puzzle that began with the Neanderthal man and the theories around it from evolution of man some 7 million years ago to the movement of the first man to step out of the African continent i.e. Homo erectus of Java Man dating 1.8 million years.
Homo erectus, particularly the specimen known as Yuanmou Man, was discovered in Yunnan Province China, and dates back approximately 1.7 million years. This discovery is significant as it provides crucial insights into early human migration and evolution in Asia. The Yuanmou Man fossils, including skull fragments and teeth, suggest that these early hominins had a mix of primitive and advanced traits, indicating a transition in human development. The findings have contributed to our understanding of the geographical spread of Homo erectus and their adaptability to different environments, underscoring the complexity of human ancestry.
Coming back to the first wave of migrations OoA (Out of Africa) by Homo Erectus or Java man, the fossils are found in Java in Indonesia were the first known species of Homo Erectus. This was followed by modern humans including Homo Heidelbergensis, likely ancestors of both anatomically modern
humans and Neanderthals. It was debatable whether to put Homo Heidolbergensis genesis to Europe on to include Africa and Asia. Finally Homo Sapiens migrated OoA (out of Africa) around 1,00,000 years ago, spread across Asia approximately 60,000 years ago and subsequently populated other continentsIn August 2012, scientists reported discovery of human skulls in a limestone cave in North Laos that dates back to 46,000- 63,000 years ago. This finding confirmed that humans roamed far and wide after OOA, venturing into Laos, China, Vietnam and Thailand.OOA settlements along routes during late Pleistocene and early Holocene period. Homo Sapiens went from North West Thailand to Chao Phraya river and mountainous western flank of Chao Phraya.
From NE Vietnam they went down to the Indo-China region, this route is supported by 86 anatomically modern human fossils found in mainland and island East and South East Asia. Homo Sapiens tooth found in Thailand and Vietnam, Hominid remains in Laos. From coast of South Asia and Western part of mainland modern South East Asia they went down to the Gulf of Thailand.
The Tibeto-Burmans, Shans and Mons of future Burma, first came to settle north of the Yellow River (Huang Ho) around 2515 BC. The Chinese annals mention the presence of these ethnic minorities in the middle basin of the Yellow river in 850 BC. But new emigrants coming from Central Asia pushed them southwards in the fertile areas between Yellow and Yangtze rivers and then migrate through the Yunnan province into Burma. In upriver Sichuan two recent discoveries made in and around Chengdu, today a megapolis of about 12 million, have confounded art historians and left any notion of a single bronze tradition tethering on the edge of the melting pot. Sacrificial pits accidentally discovered at Sanxingdui in 1986, and the site of Jinsha uncovered during road construction in 2001 produced large quantities of animal bones and elephant tusks but not one human skeleton. More sensationally, they yielded an array of bronze busts and figures, gold masks and jades quite unlike anything discourse in China. A bronze statue, 2.6 M (8.5 ft) tall (including its pedestal) and dated to about 1200 BC and elongated and gesticulating figure with stylised features more Aztec than Chinese.
Shans in Burma :-
“South-western China was the original home of the Tai people, or rather was the region where they attained to a marked separate development as a people. There are many indications that they had anciently a close connection with the Chinese before settling in Sz-ch’wan and the country south of the Yang-tzu river.”1Dali the town in southwestern China, had been occupied by non-Chinese people since the 1st century BC. After 738 AD the Nan-chao kingdom emerged in Dali, of which China had little control. It became the capital of the Nan-chao state in the 9thAD. Yunnan province was the cradle of the Tai people in. South East Asia. From there the Shans, the most prominent of branch of the Tai race, moved south towards Burma. The Dali the ancient town is located on the west side of Lake Er, a place that is known to the Chinese as Kunming. It was a trade route to China and North India.About 566 AD Emperor Wu-ti of the Northern Chao dynasty put barriers that barbarians do not cross the Yangtze River.
In the fifth century China is forming itself into a nation with addition of Hupeh in the 12th C the Emperor annexed Kuchi-chao, Hunan and Schezwan partly.The Mau Shans, according to N. Ellas trace their origin to heavenly descended kings, Kun-Kung and KunLai.The year was 568 AD and they alighted from heaven in a golden ladder and descended in the valley of Shweli.Kung-Lung and Kun-founded his kingdom at M. Kaing M. Nyaing and its capital at Mungri Mungram.Around 1035 AD with the death of Chau-Lip-pha the next King Kun-Kwot-pha’s reign also saw the rise of Pagan kings. Kun-Kwot-pha son’s cemented the rising Pagan king Anauratha by giving his daughter in marriage to him, although he never went to the Pagan court, according to Shan Chronicles.Kublai conquered Yunnan in 1253 AD, when the Nan-chao kingdom ended. The Burmese histories narrates the incursion of the Tayoks from Yunnan into Burma before CE and another around 241 AD and they could not have been Chinese, but Shans of the Kingdom of Pong and Kawsampi, as referred by later histories.The kingdom of Nan-chao could be presumed to the Pong Kongdom.From 629 AD to1253 AD the Nan-chao kingdom straddled both China and Burma and maintained a powerful position.Conquest of Assam by Ahoms
Su-Ka-Pha ascended the throne of Mao Shans in 1225
AD The path breaking year was 1228 AD when Sukapha entered Assam. He quickly movedinto Arakan and Manipur a year leter. over an Arakan, Manipur and Assam in 1229 AD.
N. Ellas confirms this determination of date by reference to the conquest of Wehsali, or Upper Assam, by the Sam-lung
pha mentioned in his histories of Mong Mao and Mogaung. This person is the Hkun Sam Long of the Hsen Wi chronicle, and was brother of the Sawbwa Hso Hkan Hpa, who is Ellas' Chaukwampha and Pemberton’s Soogampha. The cycle date for Sam Lsng’s conquest of Assam is given in the Shan chronicles. Four or five years later a relative named Chau-ka-pha (Sao Ka) was established as first Sawbwa of the newly conquered territory. “And we know from independent modern Assamese sources that the date of Chau-ka-pha’s accession is 1229 AD, and that it is probably correct or nearly so to within a year or two.
The reign of King Gaurinath Singh( 1780 to 1795) the Assamese annals had been very imperfectly kept, but that king caused a commission of Nora astronomers and other learned persons to be deputed to Mogaung to examine the histories of their “race in possession of the Shan Buddhist priests of that place, and to verify the books (or traditions) brought into the country by Chau-ka-pha. The examination completed, this commission re wrote the Ahom history in Assamese, and extended it backwards from Sam-lung-pha’s conquest of Assam to the founding of the first Shah capital on the Shweli river.''1
In 1562 AD Banniyuang the King of Pegu of the Tunguoo dynasty annexed the Mao Kingdom. That was followed by the two Chinese invasions in 1582 and 1604 AD.A century later Alaungpaya of the Konbaung dynasty conquered the Mao kingdom.
