Phum Snay and Its Significance in World History

Abstract

Climate deterioration events that started around 4200 and 3200 cal. yr. BP influenced the decline of old world-order civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, and Yangtze River. These events triggered large-scale ethnic migrations, which completely reconfigured the world map and thrust the world into a new era. The buds of new world order civilizations started to form, such as the empire of the Han people in China, the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean, and the Preclassic Mayan Civilization in the Central America. During the same period, in the peripheral regions of the Han Dynasty, the Yayoi culture emerged in Japan, the Dian Queendom rose in Yunnan Province, and complex societies were formed along the Mekong in Cambodia. These were rice-cultivating piscatory cultures and distinct from the wheat/barley/millet-cultivating pastoral cultures of the Han and Roman people. The climate abruptly began to ameliorate from 250 BC to 240 AD, when these new world-order civilizations began to flourish. Phum Snay is one of the representative prosperous cities of the new world-ordered civilizations that developed in the peripheral regions of the Han Dynasty, such as Dian Queendom in southern China and Yayoi in Japan.