I'd make the case that fish sauces were independently developed by different cultures. You can but you'd be... making a wild guess basically. Fish sauce is ve

I'd make the case that fish sauces were independently developed by different cultures. You can but you'd be... making a wild guess basically. Fish sauce is very simple. You only need two ingredients: fish and salt. And most likely... skimming the rest of the article, which does not claim that the Asian societies would not have invented the "some version of fish sauce" on their own. What the article bases its case on is the invention of a specific kind of fish sauce: Acclaimed chef Peter Cuong Franklin, owner of Anan Restaurant and Nhau Nhau Bar in Ho Chi Minh City, believes nuoc mam “may trace its origin back to garum” given that the Vietnamese version is also made by interleaving layers of anchovies with sea salt and letting it ferment in wood or ceramic containers for about 12 months. It's the specificity of the invention which leads merit to the idea -- along with linguistic cues -- that it may have been imported (or perhaps hybridized with an imported invention). Not a proven case of course - but worth taking seriously.