Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c13.57

v2.c13.57

There is hardly any doubt that the primitive wild tribes of Malayasia belonged to the palæolithic age. Discoveries of human skulls and other pre-historic finds establish a sort of racial and cultural affinity among large groups of them spreading over Indo-China, Indonesia, Melanesia, and as far as Australia. They were gradually ousted by the peoples speaking Austro-nesian group of languages and belonging to the Neo-lithic period. The time and nature of contact between all these races we have no means to determine. So far as we can judge from the analogy of similar events and the few facts that present themselves to us, the result of the conflict seems to be, that the original inhabitants were partly exterminated, partly incorporated with the new-comers, and partly pushed back to hills and jungles where some of them maintain a precarious existence upto the present day.