I'm @kamraslan, this week's curator. We've revisited SEA's neglected but remarkable precolonial maritime history. Now, not history but geography and geology that shaped choices and how Asians imagine themselves today. Why doesn't Malaysia have a Borobudur? Let's Rock! 1/9 kr

Jungles teem with life but the land is not very fertile, soil being as thin as a rotting leaf. Rotating slash-and-burn farming supports small populations. Today, Malaysian plantations/agriculture require enormous amounts of fertiliser. Kedah rice farming is very recent. 2/9 kr

Volcanos, long rivers make land fertile. Burma, Siam, Angkor, Java, Bali, Sumatran highlands have been the big agriculture zones with populations to match. Centralised kingship, big populations and agriculture can produce impressive structures if they have the right rock. 3/9 kr

Java's andesite rock (lava) is relatively easy to work. Bali's pumice (volcanic ash) and Angkor's sandstone is even easier. Balinese rather build afresh than patch up an old house, because they can. They're all beautiful, Angkor is astonishing. Wooden houses are gone. 4/9 kr

Peninsula Malaysia's main rock is granite, immensely hard, can only be worked with modern tools. The Titiwangsa Range was a huge magma chamber, similar to Mount Kinabalu. Good for grinding stones, bad for building. Infertile land, small population, bad rock, no Borobudur. 5/9 kr

Malays were a river/sea people trading for rice, eating abundant fish in wooden houses on stilts (early Europeans died in droves because they lived on the ground). Essentially urban (1511 Malacca pop. 65,000) even if cities could move overnight. With lots of travel. 6/9 kr

Rant: I abhor the word "civilisation" (game's fun). It bestows a sense of historical purpose and significance to peoples just because some of their artefacts survived over time. It's a subjective view from the gaze of temperate Europe's idea of how people should live. 7/9 kr

Angkor's the most amazing place I've ever seen but if people survive and thrive in environments that preclude stone structures, it doesn't make them lesser. What really disappoints me is if people ingest a wrong measurement and develop a sense of inferiority. Rant over. 8/9 kr

To the Dutch, Peninsula Malaya and north Borneo weren't very fertile and had nothing of value. They wanted spice, taking all the land on the route to the Bandas. Dutch are farmers not miners, if they saw it they didn't care that Malayan granite is very rare. It's got tin. 9/9 kr