Continued cultural integration in an otherwise politically fragmented post-Pagan Burma set the stage for a resurgence of a unified Burmese state in the 16th century. An apt comparison can be made with the Khmer Empire, the other Southeast Asian Empire that Mongol invasions toppled. Various Tai-Shan peoples, who came down with the Mongols, came to dominate the political landscapes of the two former empires. Whereas Burma would see a resurgence, the post-Mongol Khmer state was reduced to a mere shadow of her former self, never to regain her preeminence. Only in the former Khmer Empire, did the Thai/Lao ethnicity and Thai/Lao languages spread permanently at the expense of the Mon-Khmer speaking peoples, not unlike the Burman takeover of the Pyu realm four centuries earlier. In Burma, the result was the opposite: the Shan leadership, as well as lowland Shan immigrants of Myinsaing, Pinya, Sagaing and Ava Kingdoms came to adopt Burmese cultural norms, the Burmese language, and the Burman ethnicity. The convergence of cultural norms around existing Pagan-centered norms, at least in the Irrawaddy valley core, in turn facilitated the latter-day political reunification drives of Toungoo and Konbaung dynasties.