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History of Burma


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Prehistory

Archaeological evidence shows that Homo erectus lived in the region now known as Burma as early as 750,000 years ago and Homo sapiens about 11,000 BC, in a Stone Age culture called the Anyathian, when plants and animals were first domesticated and polished stone tools appeared in Burma. The Bronze Age arrived circa 1500 BC when people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice and domesticating poultry and pigs; they were among the first people in the world to do so. The Iron Age arrived around 500 BC when iron-working settlements had emerged in an area south of present-day Mandalay. Evidence also shows rice-growing settlements of large villages and small towns that traded with their surroundings as far as China between 500 BC and 200 AD.

Around the 2nd century BC the first-known city-states emerged in central Burma. The city-states were founded as part of the southward migration by the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu, the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant, from present-day Yunnan. The Pyu culture was heavily influenced by trade with India, importing Buddhism as well as other cultural, architectural and political concepts, which would have an enduring influence on later Burmese culture and political organization. By the 9th century AD several city-states had sprouted across the land: the Pyu states in the central dry zone, Mon states along the southern coastline and Arakanese states along the western littoral. The balance was upset when the Pyu states came under repeated attacks from the Kingdom of Nanzhao between the 750s and the 830s. In the mid-to-late 9th century the Mranma (Burmans/Bamar) of Nanzhao founded a small settlement at Pagan (Bagan). It was one of several competing city-states until the late 10th century when it grew in authority and grandeur.

Imperial Burma

Pagan gradually grew to absorb its surrounding states until the 1050s–1060s when Anawrahta founded the
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