'The area now known as Vietnam has been inhabited since Paleolithic times, with some archaeological sites in Thanh Hoa Province reportedly dating back several thousand years. Archaeologists link the beginnings of Vietnamese civilization to the late Neolithic, early Bronze Age, Phung-nguyen culture, which was centered in Vinh Phu Province of contemporary Vietnam from about 2000 to 1400 B.C. (see fig. 1). By about 1200 B.C., the development of wet-rice cultivation and bronze casting in the Ma River and Red River plains led to the development of the Dong Son culture, notable for its elaborate bronze drums.'
memory.loc.gov - click on 'early history', this site won't let you link direct to its pages ... the loc.gov site is pretty good on what it covers, excellent overviews imho
Now i wasn't there then - just as i can't document any personal vietnamese blood, i cannot credibly claim to be two thousands years old -g-, but everything i've ever read said that the viets had a recorded history going back at least two thousands years, and that they had considerable history before that even ... among the first writings is a story of invasion of one people by another ..... this MacLear book doesn't have an index entry for mongols, and i'm not going to thumb through the whole thing, too bad because the reference to the battle site was interesting, if memory serves, it was where the viets turned the tide on the mongols, who from that point were driven back until the han chinese where eventually freed from their rule as well |
