Proto-Parallels between Early Korea, Thailand and Cambodia

Abstract

This article explores parallel discourses of state formation and transitions to early history between two distinct regions of Asia: Mainland Southeast Asia with a focus on Thailand and Cambodia, and southeastern Korea. Across these regions it compares the archaeology and interpretative discourse of material cultures formative to the following early entities: Dvāravatī (central Thailand), Pre-Angkor (Cambodia and northeast Thailand), and Silla and Kaya (Korea). It argues that for both regions the period of the fourth to fifth centuries can be treated as one in which the cultures were at a proto-state level of complexity. This period is characterized by the dovetailing of two trajectories: continuity from preceding periods, and incipient state-level developments. Calibrating Korean scholarship, this article correlates the ‘Proto-Three Kingdoms’ period used in archaeology to the former, and current discourse of ‘incipient statehood’ (ch’ogi kukka) to the latter. For Pre-Angkor and Silla, the archaeology can additionally be correlated to proto-historical elites evinced from earliest epigraphy and other proto-historiographical sources (transmitted accounts). Based on these parallels, this article contends that the political geography of the cultures can be defined as ‘semi-protected regions’ and that their synchronized trajectories to early state and charter-hood provide a case for a trans-Asian proto-historical period.