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Malaysia was one of the earliest homes of Man. Stone implements found at Lenggong in Perak and the remarkable finds in the Niah Cave of Sarawak provide evidence of this. The earliest of the present day inhabitants of Malaysia are the Orang Asli of the Peninsula and people such as the Penan of Sarawak and the Rungus of Sabah. Their presence in the country probably dates back to over 5,000 years. These early settlers were probably the pioneers of the movement of people southwards from China and Tibet through mainland Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula to the Indonesian Archipelago. The first Malay settlers or the Proto-Malays had probably established themselves here by 1the year 1000. They represented the second and third wave of this movement. This movement was followed by other waves of immigrants such as the Deutero–Malays over the next few centuries. They came equipped with more advanced farming techniques and new knowledge of metals. The Malay peoples also spread out into the islands of the archipelago, settling down into small self-contained communities that gave rise to the complex and variegated ethnic pattern of Malaysia and Indonesia. The Malays of the Peninsula had their closet affinities with the Malays of Sumatra, and for centuries the Straits of Melaka did not form a dividing line between the two nations but served as a corridor linking different parts of the same family. The Malays together with the Orang Asli make up the indigenous peoples of Malaysia today, and are classified as “sons of the soil” or Bumiputera. Despite the considerable differences between the various Bumiputera groups, they all share certain characteristics, which are the hallmarks of the indigenous culture of Southeast Asia. These characteristics are rooted in an agrarian-maritime economy and reflected in a village society where leadership was largely through consensus. Although the culture of the Malays in particular can to be overlaid by Hinduism and then pervaded by Islam, elements of this basic culture still persist.
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