History of Melayukan

The History of Melayukan is the study of past events through various physical and literary artifacts.

Before the advent of writing, information was stored through artistic images and oral traditions, both of which are used in conjunction with archeological objects to reconstruct the events of prehistory. After the development of a writing system, people's impressions of events could be recorded as they occurred along with stories circulating at the time, giving researchers a more explicit narrative of events, but still essentially linked to the physical evidence of events.

Periodization

The earliest historians of Terangau promoted a cyclical concept of human development in which different people would become dominant at different times. This belief prompted them to categorize periods of time according to their concept of the political orientation of large states towards each other. According to classical historians, the first phase of human history was the Pedagang Period, during which nations operated essentially as equals and had small regions of influence. After some states began to grow more rapidly and expand their territorial regions, the world entered the Bhaareesir Period, which upset the balance of power in the world. The Bhaareesir Period ended because of the Ramatrah Period or the "Beatification" which established a new international order of equal states under the direction of a single, universal ruler. This cycle of relative equality and dominance is projected both backwards and forwards in time in an attempt to explain events, but is not universally applicable. For example, while this narrative can be used to split time into one of two categories in Terangau and, to a lesser extent, eastern Daratanayah, it seldom corresponds to events in western or central Daratanayah.

Other systems, such as the metallurgical age system, have been proposed to categorize human history, but these are seldom by the general public and tend to be viewed as unnecessarily technical.