Beginning

Homo erectus, a distant ancestor of modern man, lived in Indonesia somewhere between 350,000 and 800,000 years ago during the time of the great Ice Ages. Fossilized bones of "Java Man" from this period were found in Central Java in 1890, and stone axes and adzes have been discovered on Bali, in the northern village of Sembiran.

As the earth cooled during the Ice Ages, glaciers advanced from the polar regions and the levels of the world's ocean fell. Many of the islands of Indonesia became joined to the land masses of Southeast Asia and Australia by exposed land bridges. The early humans, as well as animals, moved through these areas, across the land bridges linking the islands. It is thought there were two main routes into Indonesia from the Asian mainland; one led down through Thailand into Malaysia and then into the archipelago while the other came down via the Philippines with branches into Kalimantan and Sulawesi.

Homosapiens first appeared around 40,000 years ago. The hunter-gatherers lived in caves and left their rock paintings on some of the far eastern islands of the archipelago. The Neolithic era, around 3000 BC, is marked by the appearance of more sophisticated stone tools, agricultural techniques and basic pottery. Remains from this era have been found at Cekik, in the far west of Bali, where evidence of a settlement together with burials of around a hundred people are thought to range from the Neolithic through to the Bronze Age.

From the seventh or eight centuries BC, the Bronze Age began to spread south from ssouthern China. Important centres for Bronze Age skills arose in Annam and Tonkin in what is now northern Vietnam, famed for bronze casting, particularly of drums, decorated with animal, human and geometric patterns. The drums have been found throughout the Indonesian archipelago as have the stone moulds used in their production. The most famous example in Bali, and the largest drum found anywhere in South East Asia, is the Moon of Pejeng, nearly two metres wide, and currently housed in a temple just east of Ubud. Discoveries of carved stone sarchopagi from this period have been concentrated in East Java and Bali. The most notable examples are on display in the Bali Museum in Denpasar and the Museum Purbakala in Pejeng.