Ancient Time

 

During the Paleocene period (70 million years BC), Indonesia did not exist yet. Nor did it exist during the Eurocent period (30 million BC), The Oligocene period (25 million BC), and Miocene period (12 million BC). It is believed that Indonesia must have existed and was linked with the present Asian mainland, during the Pleistocene period (4 million BC). !@#$%^&*():";'<>,.?/|\

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This period was also closely related to the first appearance of the Hominids. It was in a period that the "Java Man" must have inhabited that the part of the world now called Indonesia. The Java Man, named pithecanthropus erectus by Eugene Dubois, who found fossilized remains on the island of Java, must have been the first inhabitant of Indonesia.

 

It was during the smelting of ice sheets north of Europe and America that resulted in the emergence of islands, due to the rise of the sea that the Indonesian archipelago emerged. It was also in this period (3000 -500 BC) that Indonesia was inhabited by Sub-Mongoloid migrants from Asia who later inter-married with the indigenous population of the archipelago. A later mixture was brought about by Indo-Aryan migrants from the South Asian Subcontinent of India (1000 BC). The first Indian immigrants mostly from Gujarat in Southeast India came during the period of the first Christian era.

 

The Çaka period in Indonesia was marked by the introduction of the Sanskrit language and Pallawa script by the Indian Prince Aji Caka ( 78 AD). Beside this Pallawa script, the Devanagari script of the Sanskrit language was also in use as indicate in the ancient stone and copper inscriptions (pracasthies) unearthed in Indonesia. Both the language and the script were in a later period of Indonesianized and called the “Kawi” which has in its lexicon a number of additional Javanese words and words phrases. Early trade relations were established between South India and Indonesia. Sumatra was then named “Swarna Dwipa” or the island of Gold, the island of Java was called “Java Dwipa” or the Rice Island, while the Hindu Kingdom on Borneo (Kalimantan) Island was called Kutai. Relations with India were not only confined to religious and cultural exchanges which later on developed into diplomatic realizations between the Buddhist Kingdom of Sriwijaya and Nalanda in South India, but grew into well-developed trade relations.

 

A continuous influx of Indian settlers went on during the 1^st to the 7^th century AD. The Hindu religion was peacefully spread throughout the archipelago gradually to all layers of society in Java and to the upper classes only in the outer islands.