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Papers by Fiorella Rispoli

The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia, Feb 14, 2022

The emergence of iron metallurgy in Mainland Southeast Asia (~fifth century BC) marks a major bre... more The emergence of iron metallurgy in Mainland Southeast Asia (~fifth century BC) marks a major breakthrough rather cohesive, although strongly regionalized cultural traditions rooted in the southward, long- haul agricultural dispersal originating from south-central China. With the establishment of the centralized states of the Qin (221–206 BC) and Western Han (206 BC–AD 23) dynasties, the northern belt of Mainland Southeast Asia (Lingnan region, Yunnan lacustrine plains, and Song Hong River valley) attracted the expansionist policies of the Chinese empire. The southern regions of Southeast Asia, including central Thailand, followed a different path leading to interactive contacts with the Indian subcontinent and to increased regional trade networks. Iron tools, surplus management, population expansion, and a progressive localization of exotics cultural traits drove the elites of central Thailand toward a step-by-step growth in cultural complexity with the emergence of medium-complex social systems/chiefdom analogues.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia, 2022

In East Asia similar late-Pleistocenic adaptive processes prompted groups of hunter-gathers to ma... more In East Asia similar late-Pleistocenic adaptive processes prompted groups of hunter-gathers to make baked clay containers to process certain dietary components, including nutritious wild cereals (e.g., rice and millet). In the long run (~8000–4000 BC) human manipulation changed the natural morphology and characters of these cereals (domestication). The southward dispersal of rice out of its mid-low Yangtze domestication center (~5000–4500 BC) was associated with ceramic vessels decorated with a characteristic “incising and impressing” technique. The finding of actual rice grains and of this “I&I” technique archaeologically marks the dispersal of rice-growers and highlights the interactive processes between the incomers and the hunter-gatherers of subtropical modern South China adapted to its diverse ecosystems. From southern China (~2200–2000 BC) locally interbred agriculturists dispersed toward the plains of Mainland Southeast Asia facing local Early Neolithic nonagriculturists, ne...

Antiquity, Aug 1, 2020

The Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand is one of four known prehistoric loci of co-occu... more The Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand is one of four known prehistoric loci of co-occurring copper mining, smelting and casting in Southeast Asia. Many radiocarbon determinations from bronze consumption sites in Northeast Thailand date the earliest copper-base metallurgy there in the late 2 nd millennium BC. By applying Kernel Density Estimation to ca. 100 new AMS radiocarbon dates, we conclude that the first millet farmers settled the valley by 2000 BC, and initial copper mining and rudimentary smelting began in the late second millennium BC. This dovetails with the established dates for Southeast Asian metal consumption sites.

Journal of Archaeological Research in Asia, 2018

Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology, 2017

The collection of mollusk remains excavated at Tha Kae has been recently re-analyzed and identifi... more The collection of mollusk remains excavated at Tha Kae has been recently re-analyzed and identified as to genera or family level. Out of 5 main fresh/salt-water mollusk families, only Conus and Tridacna were used to make personal ornaments and, for Tridacna, small adzes, during the local Bronze Age (BA) (c. 1100-500 BCE). The study of 100 kg of production debris and of whole/fragmentary ornaments demonstrated the manufacturing cycle consisted of two main steps: 1) Procurement of the raw material; 2) Transformation in a sequence of six stages of the raw material into the base material for luxuries that arguably entered inter-regional exchange circuits. The manufacturing cycle, possibly part of a system organized at the community level, implied procurement expeditions and skilled craftspeople able to organize and use the relevant tool kit, whose origin can be traced back to the lower Yangtze valley (late fourth millennium BC). The shell-craft cycle also sheds light on the cognitive processes of the craftsmen, who had to make a choice in order to maximize the output of their work. The study provides newly organized data of direct archaeological interest to the field of Southeast Asian pre-protohistory, as well as to those of social and cultural anthropology, cognitive science, marine palaeobiology and to palaeogeography.

Colmare le lacune -Ricucire la Storia

Open Archaeology, Jul 18, 2014

This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the e... more This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the eastern side of the Phetchabun Range, the Lopburi Region (LR) to the west. They are linked by a major pass. While the Lopburi area is rich in copper ore, the Mun Valley has none. Quality salt is abundantly available in the Mun Valley but less so in the LR. This study explores the interrelationships between the areas over a period of 2300 years which sharpens our understanding of both, and presents explanations and possibilities in the context of cultural transmission theories. Neolithic farmers with ultimate origins in China, arrived in the first half of the second millennium BC. Widespread exchange in prestige goods was a factor in the adoption of copper-base metallurgy in the late 11th century BC, when the LR became a producer, the Mun Valley an importer. With the Iron Age, (from about 500 BC), sites grew in size. During the course of this period, gold, silver, agate, carnelian and glass ornaments were ritually placed with dead elites. It is in these powerful and wealthy Iron Age communities that we can identify the early transition into states with population growth, agricultural intensification, conflict and increased production and competition over salt and metal for exchange.

Open Archaeology, 2014

This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the e... more This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the eastern side of the Phetchabun Range, the Lopburi Region (LR) to the west. They are linked by a major pass. While the Lopburi area is rich in copper ore, the Mun Valley has none. Quality salt is abundantly available in the Mun Valley but less so in the LR. This study explores the inter-relationships between the areas over a period of 2300 years which sharpens our understanding of both, and presents explanations and possibilities in the context of cultural transmission theories. Neolithic farmers with ultimate origins in China, arrived in the first half of the second millennium BC. Widespread exchange in prestige goods was a factor in the adoption of copper-base metallurgy in the late 11th century BC, when the LR became a producer, the Mun Valley an importer. With the Iron Age, (from about 500 BC), sites grew in size. During the course of this period, gold, silver, agate, carnelian and glass ornaments were ritually placed with dead elites. It is in these powerful and wealthy Iron Age communities that we can identify the early transition into states with population growth, agricultural intensification, conflict and increased production and competition over salt and metal for exchange.

Journal of World Prehistory, Jun 1, 2013

This study comprises the first archaeologically-defined chronological and cultural sequence for c... more This study comprises the first archaeologically-defined chronological and cultural sequence for central Thailand. Based on collaborative research between the Thai-Italian Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project and the Thai-American Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project, the results of excavations at seven pre-and protohistoric sites that witnessed three millennia of local cultural development, from the early second millennium BC onward, are synthesized herein. This study fills a significant gap in Thailand's prehistory, also identifying important cultural interactions ranging into southern China and Vietnam that led to the formation during the second millennium BC of a 'Southeast Asian Interaction Sphere'. This interaction sphere, at the close of the second millennium BC, facilitated the transmission of the knowledge of copper-base metallurgy from southern China into Thailand, where it reached the communities of the Lopburi Region who took advantage of their ore-rich environment. At the end of the first millennium BC, strong South Asian contacts emerge in Southeast Asia. Among this study's salient contributions is the characterization of these critical prehistoric antecedents, which culminated in a process of localization of exogenous elements, usually termed 'Indianization'. The impact of this dynamic process was initially felt in central Thailand in the late first millennium BC, leading over time to the rise there, by the mid first millennium AD, of one of Southeast Asia's first 'state-like' entities.

Asian Perspectives 50.1: 53-69, 2013

Intensive surface surveys are a well-established method in the landscape archaeology of many part... more Intensive surface surveys are a well-established method in the landscape archaeology of many parts of the world, but have remained relatively rare in Southeast Asian research up to present. This paper summarises the contribution of existing surveys in the latter region and offers results from a short but informative survey of a metal-producing landscape in central Thailand. We argue that there is much to be gained from a fuller integration of systematic landscape reconnaissance into wider Southeast Asian research agendas and consider some of the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach in this cultural and physical environment.

) have proposed a model for the origin of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age founded on seven AMS rad... more ) have proposed a model for the origin of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age founded on seven AMS radiocarbon determinations from the Northeast Thai site of Ban Chiang, which would date the initial Bronze Age there to about 2000 BC. Since this date is too early for the derivation of a bronze industry from the documented exchange that linked Southeast Asia with Chinese states during the 2nd millennium BC, they have identified the Seima-Turbino 3rd millennium BC forest-steppe technology of the area between the Urals and the Altai as the source of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age. We challenge this model by presenting a new chronological framework for Ban Chiang, which supports our model that the knowledge of bronze metallurgy reached Southeast Asia only in the late 2nd millennium BC, through contact with the states of the Yellow and Yangtze valleys.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia, Feb 14, 2022

The emergence of iron metallurgy in Mainland Southeast Asia (~fifth century BC) marks a major bre... more The emergence of iron metallurgy in Mainland Southeast Asia (~fifth century BC) marks a major breakthrough rather cohesive, although strongly regionalized cultural traditions rooted in the southward, long- haul agricultural dispersal originating from south-central China. With the establishment of the centralized states of the Qin (221–206 BC) and Western Han (206 BC–AD 23) dynasties, the northern belt of Mainland Southeast Asia (Lingnan region, Yunnan lacustrine plains, and Song Hong River valley) attracted the expansionist policies of the Chinese empire. The southern regions of Southeast Asia, including central Thailand, followed a different path leading to interactive contacts with the Indian subcontinent and to increased regional trade networks. Iron tools, surplus management, population expansion, and a progressive localization of exotics cultural traits drove the elites of central Thailand toward a step-by-step growth in cultural complexity with the emergence of medium-complex social systems/chiefdom analogues.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia, 2022

In East Asia similar late-Pleistocenic adaptive processes prompted groups of hunter-gathers to ma... more In East Asia similar late-Pleistocenic adaptive processes prompted groups of hunter-gathers to make baked clay containers to process certain dietary components, including nutritious wild cereals (e.g., rice and millet). In the long run (~8000–4000 BC) human manipulation changed the natural morphology and characters of these cereals (domestication). The southward dispersal of rice out of its mid-low Yangtze domestication center (~5000–4500 BC) was associated with ceramic vessels decorated with a characteristic “incising and impressing” technique. The finding of actual rice grains and of this “I&I” technique archaeologically marks the dispersal of rice-growers and highlights the interactive processes between the incomers and the hunter-gatherers of subtropical modern South China adapted to its diverse ecosystems. From southern China (~2200–2000 BC) locally interbred agriculturists dispersed toward the plains of Mainland Southeast Asia facing local Early Neolithic nonagriculturists, ne...

Antiquity, Aug 1, 2020

The Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand is one of four known prehistoric loci of co-occu... more The Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand is one of four known prehistoric loci of co-occurring copper mining, smelting and casting in Southeast Asia. Many radiocarbon determinations from bronze consumption sites in Northeast Thailand date the earliest copper-base metallurgy there in the late 2 nd millennium BC. By applying Kernel Density Estimation to ca. 100 new AMS radiocarbon dates, we conclude that the first millet farmers settled the valley by 2000 BC, and initial copper mining and rudimentary smelting began in the late second millennium BC. This dovetails with the established dates for Southeast Asian metal consumption sites.

Journal of Archaeological Research in Asia, 2018

Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology, 2017

The collection of mollusk remains excavated at Tha Kae has been recently re-analyzed and identifi... more The collection of mollusk remains excavated at Tha Kae has been recently re-analyzed and identified as to genera or family level. Out of 5 main fresh/salt-water mollusk families, only Conus and Tridacna were used to make personal ornaments and, for Tridacna, small adzes, during the local Bronze Age (BA) (c. 1100-500 BCE). The study of 100 kg of production debris and of whole/fragmentary ornaments demonstrated the manufacturing cycle consisted of two main steps: 1) Procurement of the raw material; 2) Transformation in a sequence of six stages of the raw material into the base material for luxuries that arguably entered inter-regional exchange circuits. The manufacturing cycle, possibly part of a system organized at the community level, implied procurement expeditions and skilled craftspeople able to organize and use the relevant tool kit, whose origin can be traced back to the lower Yangtze valley (late fourth millennium BC). The shell-craft cycle also sheds light on the cognitive processes of the craftsmen, who had to make a choice in order to maximize the output of their work. The study provides newly organized data of direct archaeological interest to the field of Southeast Asian pre-protohistory, as well as to those of social and cultural anthropology, cognitive science, marine palaeobiology and to palaeogeography.

Colmare le lacune -Ricucire la Storia

Open Archaeology, Jul 18, 2014

This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the e... more This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the eastern side of the Phetchabun Range, the Lopburi Region (LR) to the west. They are linked by a major pass. While the Lopburi area is rich in copper ore, the Mun Valley has none. Quality salt is abundantly available in the Mun Valley but less so in the LR. This study explores the interrelationships between the areas over a period of 2300 years which sharpens our understanding of both, and presents explanations and possibilities in the context of cultural transmission theories. Neolithic farmers with ultimate origins in China, arrived in the first half of the second millennium BC. Widespread exchange in prestige goods was a factor in the adoption of copper-base metallurgy in the late 11th century BC, when the LR became a producer, the Mun Valley an importer. With the Iron Age, (from about 500 BC), sites grew in size. During the course of this period, gold, silver, agate, carnelian and glass ornaments were ritually placed with dead elites. It is in these powerful and wealthy Iron Age communities that we can identify the early transition into states with population growth, agricultural intensification, conflict and increased production and competition over salt and metal for exchange.

Open Archaeology, 2014

This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the e... more This paper compares the later prehistory in two regions of Thailand. The Mun Valley lies on the eastern side of the Phetchabun Range, the Lopburi Region (LR) to the west. They are linked by a major pass. While the Lopburi area is rich in copper ore, the Mun Valley has none. Quality salt is abundantly available in the Mun Valley but less so in the LR. This study explores the inter-relationships between the areas over a period of 2300 years which sharpens our understanding of both, and presents explanations and possibilities in the context of cultural transmission theories. Neolithic farmers with ultimate origins in China, arrived in the first half of the second millennium BC. Widespread exchange in prestige goods was a factor in the adoption of copper-base metallurgy in the late 11th century BC, when the LR became a producer, the Mun Valley an importer. With the Iron Age, (from about 500 BC), sites grew in size. During the course of this period, gold, silver, agate, carnelian and glass ornaments were ritually placed with dead elites. It is in these powerful and wealthy Iron Age communities that we can identify the early transition into states with population growth, agricultural intensification, conflict and increased production and competition over salt and metal for exchange.

Journal of World Prehistory, Jun 1, 2013

This study comprises the first archaeologically-defined chronological and cultural sequence for c... more This study comprises the first archaeologically-defined chronological and cultural sequence for central Thailand. Based on collaborative research between the Thai-Italian Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project and the Thai-American Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project, the results of excavations at seven pre-and protohistoric sites that witnessed three millennia of local cultural development, from the early second millennium BC onward, are synthesized herein. This study fills a significant gap in Thailand's prehistory, also identifying important cultural interactions ranging into southern China and Vietnam that led to the formation during the second millennium BC of a 'Southeast Asian Interaction Sphere'. This interaction sphere, at the close of the second millennium BC, facilitated the transmission of the knowledge of copper-base metallurgy from southern China into Thailand, where it reached the communities of the Lopburi Region who took advantage of their ore-rich environment. At the end of the first millennium BC, strong South Asian contacts emerge in Southeast Asia. Among this study's salient contributions is the characterization of these critical prehistoric antecedents, which culminated in a process of localization of exogenous elements, usually termed 'Indianization'. The impact of this dynamic process was initially felt in central Thailand in the late first millennium BC, leading over time to the rise there, by the mid first millennium AD, of one of Southeast Asia's first 'state-like' entities.

Asian Perspectives 50.1: 53-69, 2013

Intensive surface surveys are a well-established method in the landscape archaeology of many part... more Intensive surface surveys are a well-established method in the landscape archaeology of many parts of the world, but have remained relatively rare in Southeast Asian research up to present. This paper summarises the contribution of existing surveys in the latter region and offers results from a short but informative survey of a metal-producing landscape in central Thailand. We argue that there is much to be gained from a fuller integration of systematic landscape reconnaissance into wider Southeast Asian research agendas and consider some of the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach in this cultural and physical environment.

) have proposed a model for the origin of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age founded on seven AMS rad... more ) have proposed a model for the origin of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age founded on seven AMS radiocarbon determinations from the Northeast Thai site of Ban Chiang, which would date the initial Bronze Age there to about 2000 BC. Since this date is too early for the derivation of a bronze industry from the documented exchange that linked Southeast Asia with Chinese states during the 2nd millennium BC, they have identified the Seima-Turbino 3rd millennium BC forest-steppe technology of the area between the Urals and the Altai as the source of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age. We challenge this model by presenting a new chronological framework for Ban Chiang, which supports our model that the knowledge of bronze metallurgy reached Southeast Asia only in the late 2nd millennium BC, through contact with the states of the Yellow and Yangtze valleys.