Myanmar has a very long history. According to archaeological data in French and English, there were human activities in Myanmar in the late Paleolithic period 10,000 years ago. At that time, the villages along the Ayeyarwady River in Myanmar were already inhabited by humans.
The earliest archaeological evidence suggests that cultures existed in Burma as early as 11,000 BC. Most signs of early subsidence are found in the central arid region, where scattered sites appear near the Ayeyarwady River.
The Anyathian, Burmese Stone Age, existed at a time that parallels the Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe. The Neolithic or Neolithic period, when plants and animals were first domesticated and polished stone tools appeared, is evidenced in Myanmar by three caves near Taunggyi on the edge of a mountain plateau, dating back to 10,000 to 6,000 BC.
Around 1500 BC, people in the region turned copper into bronze, planted rice, and domesticated chickens and pigs, and they were the first in the world to do so. By 500 BC, ironworker settlements had emerged in an area south of what is today Mandalay, and burials filled with bronze coffins and burials of pottery had been excavated.
Archaeological evidence in the Salmon Valley, south of Mandalay, indicates a rice-growing settlement traded with China between 500 BC and 200 AD. During the Iron Age, archaeological evidence from the Salmon Valley reveals changes in infant burial practices that were heavily influenced by India. These changes include burying babies in jars whose size depicts their family status.
Biaoguan entered the Irrawaddy Valley from present-day Yunnan in the 2nd century BC, and continued to find city-states in the Irrawaddy Valley. The original residence of Biaoguan was rebuilt as Qinghai Lake in today’s Qinghai and Gansu. Biaoguan was the earliest inhabitants of Myanmar, and their records are extant.
During this period, Burma was part of the overland trade route from China to India, and trade with India brought Buddhism from South India. By the 4th century AD, many people in the Irrawaddy Valley had converted to Buddhism. Of the many city-states, the largest and most important is the southeastern part of modern Pyay, the kingdom of Sri Kedra, which is also thought to have been the capital. In March 638, the Biao Kwan of Sri Ksetra issued a new calendar, which later became the Burmese calendar.
Eighth-century Chinese records identify 18 Biaoguan states throughout the Ayeyarwady Valley and describe Biaoguan as a humane and peaceful man whose wars were barely known and who wore silk instead of silk so that they would not have to kill silkworms. Chinese records also report that Biaoguan knew how to perform astronomical calculations, and that many Biaoguan boys entered monastic life between the ages of seven and 20.
It was a long-term civilization that lasted nearly a thousand years until the early 9th century, until a new group of “fast cavalry” from the north – the Bamas, entered the upper Ayeyarwady River. In the early 9th century, the city-state of Biaoguan in Upper Burma was under constant attack from Nanzhao.
In 832, Nanzhao sacked Halingyi, who had replaced Prome as chief Biaoguan city-state and unofficial capital. Archaeologists interpret early Chinese texts detailing the looting of Halingyi in 832, detailing the capture of 3,000 Biaoguan captives who later became Nanzhao slaves in Kunming.
Although the Biaoguan settlement existed in Upper Burma until the emergence of the pagan empire in the mid-11th century, Biaoguan was gradually absorbed into the expanding Burmese kingdom over the next four centuries. The Pyu language remained until the late 12th century. By the 13th century, Biaoguan had assumed the Bamar race.
