Early history of Cambodia

Prehistoric Cambodia is sparsely known. The earliest known site in Cambodia is Laang Spean cave which occupies the country's northwest region. Laang Spean cave was first occupied in around 7000 BC Also of significance is the site Samrong Sen which was occupied c. 500 to 230 BC. From 2000 BC, Cambodians started to domesticate animals and grow rice. By 600 BC, Cambodians were making iron tools. Lastly influences from India came in 100 BC. Archaeological evidence indicates that parts of the region now called Cambodia were inhabited during the second and first millennia BC by a Neolithic culture that may have migrated from southeastern China to the Indochinese Peninsula. By the 1st century AD the inhabitants had developed relatively stable, organized societies which had far surpassed the primitive stage in culture and technical skills. The most advanced groups lived along the coast and in the lower Mekong river valley and delta regions where they cultivated rice and kept domesticated animals. Some historians speculate that these people arrived before their present Thai and Lao neighbors. These people may have been Austroasiatic in origin and related to the ancestors of the groups who now inhabit insular Southeast Asia and many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They worked metals, including iron and bronze, and were skilled in navigation. Modern archaeological findings, however, indicate that previously recognized lithic industries in the middle Mekong are results of prehistoric fluvial movement and may not indicate early technology. Recent research has revealed some circular earthworks dating to Cambodia's Neolithic era.