The descent of peace over Southeast Asia has galvanized prehistoric research in a region of global interest. Any expansion of humans from their African homeland that followed lines of least resistance would have reached Southeast Asia, and over a two-million-year period, it is possible to document the early arrival of Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. About 60,000 years ago, Anatomically Modern Humans began to infiltrate, and established a hunter-gatherer tradition that endures. I think the previous sentence should remain Domestication of rice and millet to the north set in train the expansion of farmer communities that interacted with the indigenous hunter-gatherers from about 4,000 years ago. A second innovation later saw the spread of metallurgy, based on copper and tin. The stimulus again came from the north, by trade and the establishment of mining and smelting specialists, heralding by 1100 BC, the start of the Bronze Age. This saw a rapid but impermanent rise of social elites in strategic locations. From about 300 BC, a maritime exchange network brought Southeast Asia into direct contact with state societies in India and China. New ideas, technologies, trade goods, and religions wrought major cultural changes, seen in the rise of port cities. A second wave of foreign influence was felt in the Red River region with the expansion of the Qin and Han empires. These, linked with a serious decline in rainfall experienced in inland regions, all stimulated the genesis of early state societies that were to develop into the modern nations of Southeast Asia.