Facts about Cambodia

History
Early Beginnings
Cambodia came into being, so the legend goes, through the union of a princess and a foreigner. The foreigner was an Indian Brahman named Kaundinya. The princess was the daughter of a dragon king who ruled over a watery place. One day, as Kaundinya sailed by, the princess paddled out in a boat to greet him. Kaundinya shot an arrow from his magic bow into her boat, causing the princess to fearfully agree to marriage. In need of a dowry, her father drank up the waters of his land and presented them to Kaundinya to rule over. The new Kingdom was named Kambuja.

Like many legends, this one is historically opaque, but it does say something about the cultural forces that brought Cambodia into existence; in particular its relationship with its great subcontinental neighbour, India. Cambodia's religious, royal and written traditions stemmed from India and began to coalesce as a culteral tradition in their own right from around the 1st century AD.

Very little is known about prehistoric Cambodia. Evidence of cave dwellers has been found in the north-west of Cambodia. Carbon dating on ceramic pots found in the area shows they were made around 4200 BC. But it is difficult to say whether there is a direct relationship between these cave-dwelling pot makers and contemporary Khmers. Examination of bones dating back to around 1500 BC, however suggest that the people living in Cambodia at that time resembled Cambodians of today.

Archaeological evidence shows that Cambodians prior to 1000 BC lived in houses on stilts (as they do today), and subsisted on a diet that included large quantities of fish and cultivated rice. Early Chinese records report that the Cambodian were 'ugly' and 'dark' and went about naked; a pinch of salt is always required when reading the culturally chauvinistic reports of imperial China concerning its 'barbarian' neighbours.

By lonely planet "Cambodia"