2000 BC to 669

Seafarers and first kings

Fossils of Java Man show that early humans reached these islands more than a million years ago. Around four thousand years ago Austronesian seafarers, spreading south from Taiwan, settle the archipelago with rice and outrigger canoes. The first written records, Sanskrit inscriptions of King Mulawarman at Kutai in Borneo, date from around 400 AD, followed by those of Tarumanagara in western Java.