The Great East Asian Fertile Triangle

Abstract

In the Great East Asian Fertile Triangle, rice-cultivating piscatory ­cultures flourished. Women were active members of the society. Their lifestyles, typical of people inhabiting evergreen broad-leaved forests, spread to the Great East Asian Fertile Triangle along with rice cultivation technologies. The starting point of the rice-cultivating piscatory cultures within the Great East Asian Fertile Triangle was the Primary Rice-Cultivating Piscatory Civilization Center in the middle to lower Yangtze River basin. In this region, rice cultivation is believed to have started over 10000 cal. yr. BP. By 6000 cal. yr. BP, it had developed into the Yangtze River Civilization. However, the dramatic climate change around 4200 cal. yr. BP triggered the invasion of wheat/barley/millet-cultivating pastoral people from the north, resulting in the decline of the Yangtze River Civilization. Some of the peoples of the Yangtze River Civilization had fled to Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces and created new settlements in the mountainous regions by developing a new technology for rice cultivation—the terraced rice paddies. This became the Secondary Rice-Cultivating Piscatory Civilization Center. It was during the warm period between 250 BC and AD 240 when the Tertiary Rice-Cultivating Piscatory Civilization Center, which includes the Dian Queendom in Yunnan China, Funan Queendom in Cambodia, and the Yamataikoku Queendom in Japan, was most active. The climate deterioration event at AD 240 triggered another mass migration of ethnic groups in the fertile river delta regions of East Asia. The collapse of the Late Han Dynasty and the subsequent turmoil during the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Five Barbarians period induced a southward migration along the Mekong River into Southeast Asia, which developed into the Quaternary Rice-Cultivating Piscatory Civilization Center including Indonesia and Bali island.