ABSTRACT
When we speak, in historical terms, of contacts between India and Southeast Asia we think first of "Indianization", that massive and complex process which, starting perhaps in the mid-first millennium BC, led to the transfer of so many aspects of Indian culture eastwards across the Bay of Bengal. This is an immense field of research which I can only just touch on since my primary concern is to examine the archaeological evidence in Southeast Asia for the very beginning of this process, and to seek an explanation for it.
