Early history

A Borobudur ship carved on Borobudur temple, c. 800 CE. Outrigger boats from the archipelago may have
made trade voyages to the east coast of Africa as early as the 1st century CE.[20]
Fossilised remains of Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man", suggest the Indonesian
archipelago was inhabited two million to 500,000 years ago.[21][22][23] Homo sapiens reached the
region around 43,000 BCE.[24] Austronesian peoples, who form the majority of the modern
population, migrated to Southeast Asia from what is now Taiwan. They arrived in the archipelago
around 2,000 BCE and confined the native Melanesian peoples to the far eastern regions as they
spread east.[25] Ideal agricultural conditions and the mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early
as the eighth century BCE[26] allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the first
century CE. The archipelago's strategic sea-lane position fostered inter-island and international
trade, including with Indian kingdoms and Chinese dynasties, from several centuries BCE.
[27]
 Trade has since fundamentally shaped Indonesian history.[28][29]
From the seventh century CE, the Srivijaya naval kingdom flourished as a result of trade and the
influences of Hinduism and Buddhism.[30] Between the eighth and tenth centuries CE, the
agricultural Buddhist Sailendra and Hindu Mataram dynasties thrived and declined in inland
Java, leaving grand religious monuments such as Sailendra's Borobudur and
Mataram's Prambanan. The Hindu Majapahit kingdom was founded in eastern Java in the late
13th century, and under Gajah Mada, its influence stretched over much of present-day
Indonesia. This period is often referred to as a "Golden Age" in Indonesian history.[31]
The earliest evidence of Islamized populations in the archipelago dates to the 13th century in
northern Sumatra.[32] Other parts of the archipelago gradually adopted Islam, and it was the
dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam
overlaid and mixed with existing cultural and religious influences, which shaped the predominant
form of Islam in Indonesia, particularly in Java.[33]