Lạc Việt
The Lạc Việt who owned the Bronze Age Đông Sơn culture, which centered at the Red River Delta (in Northern Vietnam),[3] are hypothesized to be the ancestors of the modern Kinh Vietnamese.
Based on Chinese observers' remarks that the Lạc people's paddies depended on water-control systems like tidal-irrigation & draining, so that the floody, swampy Red River Delta might be suitable for agriculture, many scholars opted to find its etymology in the semantic field "water".
[8] Vietnamese scholar Nguyễn Kim Thản (apud Vũ Thế Ngọc, 1989) suggests that Lạc simply means "water" and is comparable to phonetically similar elements in two compounds nước rạc (lit.
[15][16] The Warring States period's encyclopedia Lüshi Chunqiu mentioned the name Yueluo 越駱 (SV: Việt Lạc), which the Han historian and philosopher Gao You asserted to be a country's name (國名).
[22] After gaining a brief independence amid the Trung sisters' rebellion, Lac chiefs along with its social elites were massacred, deported, and forced to adopt Han cultures in a reactionary military response led by Chinese general Ma Yuan.
[2] French linguist Michel Ferlus in 2009 draws his conclusion that they were northern Vietic (Viet–Muong) speakers and believes that the Vietnamese are direct descendants of the Dongsonians (i.e. Lac Viet).
[33] James Chamberlain (2016), on the other hand, proposes that the Lac Viet were ancestors to Central Tai speakers and Southwestern Tai-speakers (including Thai people);[34] however, based on layers of Chinese loanwords in proto-Southwestern Tai and other historical evidence, Pittayawat Pittayaporn (2014) proposes that the southwestward migration of southwestern Tai-speaking tribes from the modern Guangxi to the mainland of Southeast Asia must have taken place sometimes between the 8th–10th centuries CE at the earliest,[35] long after 44BCE, when the Luoyue had been last mentioned.
[26] Archaeological evidence reveals that during the pre-Dongson period, the Red River Delta was prominently Austroasiatic: for instance, genetic samples from the Mán Bạc burial site (dated 1,800 BC) have close proximity to modern Austroasiatic speakers,[36] and then during the Dongson period, genetic examples yield to a significant proportion of Tai stocks (known as Au, Li-Lao) possibly living along with Vietic speakers.
They denied in situ cultural evolution or social complexity, attributing any development to Sinicization,[41][42][43] though they were aware of this "stable, structured, productive, populous, and relatively sophisticated" society they encountered.
[44] A record from the 220s BCE reported "unorthodox customs" of inhabitants in parts of the region:"To crop the hair, decorate the body, rub pigment into arms and fasten garments on the left side is the way of the Baiyue.
In the country of Xiwu (Vietnamese: Tây Vu) the habit is to blacken teeth, scar cheeks and wear caps of sheat [catfish] skin stitched crudely with an awl.
"[45] Hou Hanshu described the region as thick with dense forests, and full of ponds and lakes, with countless wild animals like elephants, rhinoceros and tigers, while the locals earned their living by hunting and fishing, using bows propelling poisoned arrows, tattooing themselves, and wearing chignon and turbans.
This practice provided an heir for the mother, protecting widows' interests and reflecting female authority, although some patriarchal societies used it to keep wealth within the male family bloodline.
[44] The cultivation of irrigated rice may have started in the beginning of the second millennium BCE, evidenced by findings from palynological sequences,[52][44] while metal tools were regularly used before any significant Sino-Vietic interaction.
