Foragers had occupied mainland South-East Asia from at least 12,000 years ago, leaving traces in sites such as Padah Lin in Burma and Nam Tun in Vietnam. These so-called Hoabinhian populations used relatively unspecialized stone tools for cutting, pounding and scraping.
Sites of this period are coastal and riverine shell middens, inland caves in the dissected limestone region and open sites on low terraces behind the coastal plains.
From about 8000 years ago, at sites such as Spirit Cave in Thailand, pottery, adzes and polished slate knives were added to the pebble stone tool kit. Plant remains suggest that plant foods were becoming increasingly important, with perhaps some simple cultivation of beans and peas.
Around 2000 BC the first agricultural communities appeared, as sites such as Non Nok Tha.
