Beyond Singapore

Pre-modern and colonial Singapore did not exist in isolation, and they had always been part of a larger regional and extra-regional network of interaction, trade and exchange. Medieval Temasek and Singapore as an East India Company factory were but one of the many incarnations of port settlements that populated throughout the Malay Archipelago over the last millennium. Investigating such relationships, Singaporean archaeologists are also active in Sumatra, Java, Malaya, Kampuchea and Burma, comparing and contrasting similar port cities, early urbanization, settlement growth, and the circulation of trade goods and commodities.