History of Phitsanulok Province - Prehistoric Era

Prehistoric Era

Phitsanulok Province was inhabited during the stone age, as many stone axes have been found in the area indicative of the time period. However, these early hunter-gatherers are not likely to be ancestors of the Thai who presently inhabit the Phitsanulok Province. The human population around Phitsanulok Province remained sparse until late in the region's history. The settlement of the indigenous populations of the region began around the advent of rice agriculture during the bronze age, and continued through the iron age. Archaeologists suspect that Mon-Khmer speaking tribes spread through the region, bringing rice agriculture, metalworking, domestic animals. The main course of migration during the metal ages probably ran along the coast of Thailand, but migrants also traveled inland along the Chao Phraya to the Nan Basin and other areas, where it was relatively easier to establish settlements. The next major wave of migration into the province came not from the coast along the Chao Phraya, but rather from the mountainous areas of northern Thailand. These migrants were the Tai. Their course of immigration probably began south of the Yangzi River. As the Han Chinese spread south of the Yangzi around the sixth century BC, the ancestors of the Thai retreated into the high valleys and, over many centuries, migrated west along an arc from the Guangxi to the Brahmaputra Valley. The Thai brought rice-farming expertise to the mountainous areas of Northern Thailand, and eventually to the Nan Basin and the other lowland regions of Thailand. Some of the Nan River Mon-Khmer retreated into the hills as the Thai expansion continued, while others generally adopted dialects of the Tai languages and blended into the culture of the new settlers. The Tai language spoken in Phitsanulok (and most of modern Thailand) was heavily influenced by the Khmer culture as well, and evolved into the language we now call Thai, which is considerably different from other Tai dialects. Even after this Thai migration, the population in present-day Phitsanulok Province, other than along the banks of the Nan River was sparse. Predator animal species, as well as malaria, tropical temperatures and other hardships, kept the population from expanding far from the river, despite the region's extremely fertile soil.