ABSTRACT
This chapter indicates the choices lay open to the first settlers of Indochina in the way of natural environment and soil, and the potentialities of each of the various geographical areas and their internal and external lines of communication. There are here four avenues of approach. First, the prehistoric remains left by man can be studied. Second, the migrational movements leading to the earliest settlements can be reconstructed, although the results will be largely hypothetical. Third, the present geographical distribution of the various languages spoken can be examined, as well as what little is known of their history; at the present stage of research language is the only criterion for distinguishing the various ethnic groups that share the soil of the peninsula between them. Fourth, a study can be made of the social organization of the backward peoples among the present inhabitants of the peninsula in the hope that it may throw light on that of the early inhabitants.
