ABSTRACT
To the extent that scholars can reconstruct a chronology and a history for Southeast Asia, the process is complex. People prefer to assert their national and regional identities. Often they do not see, and sometimes they even deny, that this individuality has resulted from a process extending back into history and prehistory, in which layer after layer of outside infl uence transformed, and was transformed by, the cultures that received it. We cannot speak of cultural purity in any sense, and the people of Southeast Asia recognize themselves as participants in multiple levels of society: as Southeast Asians, as citizens of a nation, as carriers of a regional tradition, as groups distinct from those of another province, district, village, or even family. It is therefore appropriate to understand that Southeast Asian cultures were formed from waves of cultural infl uence, from both nearby and distant societies.
