From the Nanhai to the Indian Ocean and Beyond: Southeast Asia
in the Maritime ‘Silk’ Roads of the Eurasian World Economy 200 BC – AD500

Sing C. Chew

Humboldt State University – Arcata, USA and
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ Leipzig, Germany
sing.chew@ufz.de

The First Eurasian World Economy from a world-historical context extended from China through Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf Region, East Africa to the Mediterranean and Europe. Periodizations of the spatio-temporal connections over such a wide expanse have varied. As a rough estimate, such an ancient world economic system was connected by the time of China’s Han Dynasty and the late Roman Republican period, though other regions in this world system had much earlier trade exchanges. These trade connections were via land and sea. This paper focuses on the Maritime Silk Roads of the system, and the important contribution (trade and seafaring technologies) Southeast Asia has in this overall maritime silk routes from East Asia to the Mediterranean from late prehistory to the early historical period. In doing so, the paper questions the commonly accepted peripheral role in this world economic system attributed to Southeast Asia by numerous Indocentric scholars.