Charles F Higham | University of Otago (original) (raw)

Papers by Charles F Higham

Research paper thumbnail of Ban Chiang and charcoal in hypothetical hindsight

Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 1988

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Research paper thumbnail of The excavation of Nong Nor : a prehistoric site in Central Thailand

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Research paper thumbnail of New Evidence for Agriculture and Stock-raising in Monsoonal Southeast Asia

BRILL eBooks, 1985

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Research paper thumbnail of Zooarchaeology of Ban Chiang and the rise of early farming communities in mainland Southeast Asia

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Nov 4, 2022

Ban Chiang is a prehistoric settlement located in the northeast Khorat Plateau in Thailand. Excav... more Ban Chiang is a prehistoric settlement located in the northeast Khorat Plateau in Thailand. Excavations in 1974–1975 identified a cultural sequence that spanned the arrival of the first rice farmers in ca. 1500 BC until the end of the Iron Age two millennia later. The large faunal sample includes the remains of mammals, fish, birds, and shellfish that illuminate aspects of the economy and environment. Domestic cattle, water buffaloes, pigs, and dogs, all domesticated in southern China, were introduced and maintained in an economy that incorporated hunting, fishing and collecting shellfish. The jungle fowl, Gallus gallus, was probably locally domesticated. When considered in its broader context, the faunal remains from Neolithic coastal Vietnamese and Thai sites present a very different picture. In the coastal sites, pigs and dogs dominate, but domestic cattle and chickens are virtually absent. The incoming farmers placed much reliance on marine hunting and fishing. Recent multidisciplinary research has identified an agricultural revolution involving animal traction and plowing in irrigated rice fields that occurred as the monsoon rains faltered from ca. AD 200. This took place in the relatively dry Mun River Valley in the southern part of the Khorat Plateau and rapidly led to the foundation of early states. Ban Chiang, however, enjoys higher natural rainfall and evidence for the agricultural revolution there appears muted or absent.

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Research paper thumbnail of The excavation of noen u-loke and non muang kao

Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao are two large, moated prehistoric settlements in Nakhon Ratchasima ... more Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao are two large, moated prehistoric settlements in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Northeast Thailand. Excavations in 1997-8 revealed a cultural sequence that began in the late Bronze Age, followed by four mortuary phases covering the Iron Age. This report describes the palaeoenvironment, excavation, chronology and material culture, human remains and social structure of the prehistoric inhabitants of these two sites. It is the second volume reporting on the research programme "The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor".

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Research paper thumbnail of Changing social inequality from first farmers to early states in Southeast Asia

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Nov 8, 2021

When the first rice farmers expanded into Southeast Asia from the north about 4,000 y ago, they i... more When the first rice farmers expanded into Southeast Asia from the north about 4,000 y ago, they interacted with hunter-gatherer communities with an ancestry in the region of at least 50 millennia. Rigorously dated prehistoric sites in the upper Mun Valley of Northeast Thailand have revealed a 12-phase sequence beginning with the first farmers followed by the adoption of bronze and then iron metallurgy leading on to the rise of early states. On the basis of the burial rituals involving interment with a wide range of mortuary offerings and associated practices, we identify, by computing the values of the Gini coefficient, at least two periods of intensified social inequality. The first occurred during the initial Bronze Age that, we suggest, reflected restricted elite ownership of exotic valuables within an exchange choke point. The second occurred during the later Iron Age when increased aridity stimulated an agricultural revolution that rapidly led to the first state societies in mainland Southeast Asia.

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Research paper thumbnail of Irregular earthworks in N. E. Thailand: new insight

Antiquity, Jul 1, 1982

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Research paper thumbnail of Chronology, Duration, and Periodicity of Linear Enamel Hypoplasia at the Late Iron Age Site Non Ban Jak, Thailand: A Quantitative Microscopic Analysis

SSRN Electronic Journal

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Research paper thumbnail of New insights into Metabolic Syndrome among ancient populations in mainland Asia

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2020

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Research paper thumbnail of Reinterpreting Archaeobotany in Mainland Southeast Asia

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Research paper thumbnail of Correction: Investigating the Global Dispersal of Chickens in Prehistory Using Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Signatures

PLOS ONE, 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of Ru Diep and the Quynh Van culture of central Vietnam

Archaeological Research in Asia, 2020

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Research paper thumbnail of Author Correction: Craniometrics Reveal “Two Layers” of Prehistoric Human Dispersal in Eastern Eurasia

Scientific Reports, 2019

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of t... more A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

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Research paper thumbnail of Palaeoecology and Forager Subsistence Strategies during the Pleistocene – Holocene Transition: A Reinvestigation of the Zooarchaeological Assemblage from Spirit Cave, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand

Asian Perspectives, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Ancient Genomics Reveals Four Prehistoric Migration Waves into Southeast Asia

Two distinct population models have been put forward to explain present-day human diversity in So... more Two distinct population models have been put forward to explain present-day human diversity in Southeast Asia. The first model proposes long-term continuity (Regional Continuity model) while the other suggests two waves of dispersal (Two Layer model). Here, we use whole-genome capture in combination with shotgun sequencing to generate 25 ancient human genome sequences from mainland and island Southeast Asia, and directly test the two competing hypotheses. We find that early genomes from Hoabinhian hunter-gatherer contexts in Laos and Malaysia have genetic affinities with the Onge hunter-gatherers from the Andaman Islands, while Southeast Asian Neolithic farmers have a distinct East Asian genomic ancestry related to present-day Austroasiatic-speaking populations. We also identify two further migratory events, consistent with the expansion of speakers of Austronesian languages into Island Southeast Asia ca. 4 kya, and the expansion by East Asians into northern Vietnam ca. 2 kya. These...

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Research paper thumbnail of The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia: New Insight on Social Change from Ban Non Wat

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011

The expansion of copper-base metallurgy in the mainland of Eurasia began in the Near East and end... more The expansion of copper-base metallurgy in the mainland of Eurasia began in the Near
East and ended in Southeast Asia. The recognition of this Southeast Asian metallurgical
province followed in the wake of French colonial occupation of Cambodia and Laos in the
nineteenth century. Subsequently, most research has concentrated in Thailand, beginning
in the 1960s. A sound chronology is the prerequisite to identifying both the origins of the
Bronze Age, and the social impact that metallurgy may have had on society. This article
presents the revolutionary results of excavations at the site of Ban Non Wat in northeast
Thailand within the broader cultural context of Southeast Asian prehistory, concluding
that the adoption of copper-base metallurgy from the eleventh century bc coincided with
the rise of wealthy social aggrandizers.

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Research paper thumbnail of The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di. A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand : Volume III: The Material Culture (Part 1)

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Research paper thumbnail of Mitch Hendrickson, Miriam T. Stark & Damian Evans (ed.). 2023. The Angkorian World. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge; 978-0-81535-595-3 hardback £190

Antiquity

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Research paper thumbnail of Michael Loewe & Edward L. Shaughnessy (ed.). The Cambridge history of ancient China from the origins of civilization to 221BC . xxxi + 1148 pages, 200 figures, 12 tables. 1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 0-521-47030-7 hardback £80 & US$130

Antiquity, 2000

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Research paper thumbnail of From site formation to social structure in prehistoric Thailand

Journal of Field Archaeology, 2015

Abstract The archaeological record in mainland Southeast Asia from ca. 2000 b.c. to the formation... more Abstract The archaeological record in mainland Southeast Asia from ca. 2000 b.c. to the formation of early states in the mid-first millennium a.d. is built on excavations in mounded settlements that incorporate habitation, industrial, and mortuary remains. For most sites, formation processes are not readily identified. have presented a new view of the social organization of the Southeast Asian “metal age” based on a reinterpretation of mortuary and settlement data, founded on their premise that the dead were interred in, under, or in conjunction with domestic residences rather than dedicated cemeteries. They argue that such house societies were instruments for remarkably long-term occupation of individual settlements by heterarchic, non-violent supravillage affiliative social groupings. A detailed examination of the evidence for such residential burial suggests a lack of convincing evidence until the Iron Age. Moreover, new dating programs have shortened the prehistoric sequence, leading to more rapid and intense social changes than hitherto suspected.

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Research paper thumbnail of Ban Chiang and charcoal in hypothetical hindsight

Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 1988

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Research paper thumbnail of The excavation of Nong Nor : a prehistoric site in Central Thailand

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of New Evidence for Agriculture and Stock-raising in Monsoonal Southeast Asia

BRILL eBooks, 1985

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Research paper thumbnail of Zooarchaeology of Ban Chiang and the rise of early farming communities in mainland Southeast Asia

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Nov 4, 2022

Ban Chiang is a prehistoric settlement located in the northeast Khorat Plateau in Thailand. Excav... more Ban Chiang is a prehistoric settlement located in the northeast Khorat Plateau in Thailand. Excavations in 1974–1975 identified a cultural sequence that spanned the arrival of the first rice farmers in ca. 1500 BC until the end of the Iron Age two millennia later. The large faunal sample includes the remains of mammals, fish, birds, and shellfish that illuminate aspects of the economy and environment. Domestic cattle, water buffaloes, pigs, and dogs, all domesticated in southern China, were introduced and maintained in an economy that incorporated hunting, fishing and collecting shellfish. The jungle fowl, Gallus gallus, was probably locally domesticated. When considered in its broader context, the faunal remains from Neolithic coastal Vietnamese and Thai sites present a very different picture. In the coastal sites, pigs and dogs dominate, but domestic cattle and chickens are virtually absent. The incoming farmers placed much reliance on marine hunting and fishing. Recent multidisciplinary research has identified an agricultural revolution involving animal traction and plowing in irrigated rice fields that occurred as the monsoon rains faltered from ca. AD 200. This took place in the relatively dry Mun River Valley in the southern part of the Khorat Plateau and rapidly led to the foundation of early states. Ban Chiang, however, enjoys higher natural rainfall and evidence for the agricultural revolution there appears muted or absent.

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Research paper thumbnail of The excavation of noen u-loke and non muang kao

Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao are two large, moated prehistoric settlements in Nakhon Ratchasima ... more Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao are two large, moated prehistoric settlements in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Northeast Thailand. Excavations in 1997-8 revealed a cultural sequence that began in the late Bronze Age, followed by four mortuary phases covering the Iron Age. This report describes the palaeoenvironment, excavation, chronology and material culture, human remains and social structure of the prehistoric inhabitants of these two sites. It is the second volume reporting on the research programme "The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor".

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Research paper thumbnail of Changing social inequality from first farmers to early states in Southeast Asia

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Nov 8, 2021

When the first rice farmers expanded into Southeast Asia from the north about 4,000 y ago, they i... more When the first rice farmers expanded into Southeast Asia from the north about 4,000 y ago, they interacted with hunter-gatherer communities with an ancestry in the region of at least 50 millennia. Rigorously dated prehistoric sites in the upper Mun Valley of Northeast Thailand have revealed a 12-phase sequence beginning with the first farmers followed by the adoption of bronze and then iron metallurgy leading on to the rise of early states. On the basis of the burial rituals involving interment with a wide range of mortuary offerings and associated practices, we identify, by computing the values of the Gini coefficient, at least two periods of intensified social inequality. The first occurred during the initial Bronze Age that, we suggest, reflected restricted elite ownership of exotic valuables within an exchange choke point. The second occurred during the later Iron Age when increased aridity stimulated an agricultural revolution that rapidly led to the first state societies in mainland Southeast Asia.

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Research paper thumbnail of Irregular earthworks in N. E. Thailand: new insight

Antiquity, Jul 1, 1982

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Research paper thumbnail of Chronology, Duration, and Periodicity of Linear Enamel Hypoplasia at the Late Iron Age Site Non Ban Jak, Thailand: A Quantitative Microscopic Analysis

SSRN Electronic Journal

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Research paper thumbnail of New insights into Metabolic Syndrome among ancient populations in mainland Asia

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2020

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Research paper thumbnail of Reinterpreting Archaeobotany in Mainland Southeast Asia

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Correction: Investigating the Global Dispersal of Chickens in Prehistory Using Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Signatures

PLOS ONE, 2019

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Research paper thumbnail of Ru Diep and the Quynh Van culture of central Vietnam

Archaeological Research in Asia, 2020

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Research paper thumbnail of Author Correction: Craniometrics Reveal “Two Layers” of Prehistoric Human Dispersal in Eastern Eurasia

Scientific Reports, 2019

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of t... more A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

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Research paper thumbnail of Palaeoecology and Forager Subsistence Strategies during the Pleistocene – Holocene Transition: A Reinvestigation of the Zooarchaeological Assemblage from Spirit Cave, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand

Asian Perspectives, 2016

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Research paper thumbnail of Ancient Genomics Reveals Four Prehistoric Migration Waves into Southeast Asia

Two distinct population models have been put forward to explain present-day human diversity in So... more Two distinct population models have been put forward to explain present-day human diversity in Southeast Asia. The first model proposes long-term continuity (Regional Continuity model) while the other suggests two waves of dispersal (Two Layer model). Here, we use whole-genome capture in combination with shotgun sequencing to generate 25 ancient human genome sequences from mainland and island Southeast Asia, and directly test the two competing hypotheses. We find that early genomes from Hoabinhian hunter-gatherer contexts in Laos and Malaysia have genetic affinities with the Onge hunter-gatherers from the Andaman Islands, while Southeast Asian Neolithic farmers have a distinct East Asian genomic ancestry related to present-day Austroasiatic-speaking populations. We also identify two further migratory events, consistent with the expansion of speakers of Austronesian languages into Island Southeast Asia ca. 4 kya, and the expansion by East Asians into northern Vietnam ca. 2 kya. These...

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Research paper thumbnail of The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia: New Insight on Social Change from Ban Non Wat

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011

The expansion of copper-base metallurgy in the mainland of Eurasia began in the Near East and end... more The expansion of copper-base metallurgy in the mainland of Eurasia began in the Near
East and ended in Southeast Asia. The recognition of this Southeast Asian metallurgical
province followed in the wake of French colonial occupation of Cambodia and Laos in the
nineteenth century. Subsequently, most research has concentrated in Thailand, beginning
in the 1960s. A sound chronology is the prerequisite to identifying both the origins of the
Bronze Age, and the social impact that metallurgy may have had on society. This article
presents the revolutionary results of excavations at the site of Ban Non Wat in northeast
Thailand within the broader cultural context of Southeast Asian prehistory, concluding
that the adoption of copper-base metallurgy from the eleventh century bc coincided with
the rise of wealthy social aggrandizers.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di. A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand : Volume III: The Material Culture (Part 1)

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Mitch Hendrickson, Miriam T. Stark & Damian Evans (ed.). 2023. The Angkorian World. Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge; 978-0-81535-595-3 hardback £190

Antiquity

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Michael Loewe & Edward L. Shaughnessy (ed.). The Cambridge history of ancient China from the origins of civilization to 221BC . xxxi + 1148 pages, 200 figures, 12 tables. 1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 0-521-47030-7 hardback £80 & US$130

Antiquity, 2000

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of From site formation to social structure in prehistoric Thailand

Journal of Field Archaeology, 2015

Abstract The archaeological record in mainland Southeast Asia from ca. 2000 b.c. to the formation... more Abstract The archaeological record in mainland Southeast Asia from ca. 2000 b.c. to the formation of early states in the mid-first millennium a.d. is built on excavations in mounded settlements that incorporate habitation, industrial, and mortuary remains. For most sites, formation processes are not readily identified. have presented a new view of the social organization of the Southeast Asian “metal age” based on a reinterpretation of mortuary and settlement data, founded on their premise that the dead were interred in, under, or in conjunction with domestic residences rather than dedicated cemeteries. They argue that such house societies were instruments for remarkably long-term occupation of individual settlements by heterarchic, non-violent supravillage affiliative social groupings. A detailed examination of the evidence for such residential burial suggests a lack of convincing evidence until the Iron Age. Moreover, new dating programs have shortened the prehistoric sequence, leading to more rapid and intense social changes than hitherto suspected.

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Research paper thumbnail of More questions than answers: the Southeast Asian Lead Isotope Project 2009-2012

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Research paper thumbnail of Archaeogenetic study of prehistoric rice remains from Thailand and India: evidence of early japonica in South and Southeast Asia

We report a successful extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA from carbonized rice grains (Oryz... more We report a successful extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA from carbonized rice grains (Oryza sativa) from six archaeological sites, including two from India and four from Thailand, ranging in age from ca. 2500 to 1500 BP. In total, 221 archaeological grains were processed by PCR amplification and primary-targeted fragments were sequenced for comparison with modern sequences generated from 112 modern rice populations, including crop and wild varieties. Our results include the genetic sequences from both the chloroplast and the nuclear genomes, based on four markers from the chloroplast and six from the nuclear genome. These markers allow differentiation of indica rice from japonica rice, the two major subspecies of Asian rice (O. sativa) considered to have separate geographical origins. One nuclear marker differentiates tropical and temperate forms of subspecies japonica. Other markers relate to phenotypic variation selected for under domestication, such as non-shattering, grain stickiness (waxy starch) and pericarp colour. Recovery and identification of sequences from nuclear markers was generally poor, whereas recovery of chloroplast sequences was successful, with at least one of four markers recovered in 61 % of archaeological grains. This allowed for successful differentiation of indica or japonica subspecies variety, with japonica identified in all the Thai material and a mixture of indica and japonica chloroplasts in the two Indian assemblages. Rice subspecies was also assessed through conventional archaeobotanical methods relying on grain metrics, based on measurements from 13 modern populations and 499 archaeological grains. Grain metrics also suggest a predominance of japonica-type grains in the Southeast Asian sites and a mixture of japonica and indica in the Indian sites with indica in the minority. The similar results of grain metrics and ancient DNA (aDNA) affirm that grain measurements have some degree of reliability in rice subspecies identification. The study also highlights the great potential of ancient DNA recovery from archaeological rice. The data generated in the present study adds support to the model of rice evolution that includes hybridization between japonica and proto-indica.

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Research paper thumbnail of Investigating the Global Dispersal of Chickens in Prehistory Using Ancient Mitochondrial DNA Signatures

Data from morphology, linguistics, history, and archaeology have all been used to trace the dispe... more Data from morphology, linguistics, history, and archaeology have all been used to trace the dispersal of chickens from Asian
domestication centers to their current global distribution. Each provides a unique perspective which can aid in the
reconstruction of prehistory. This study expands on previous investigations by adding a temporal component from ancient
DNA and, in some cases, direct dating of bones of individual chickens from a variety of sites in Europe, the Pacific, and the
Americas. The results from the ancient DNA analyses of forty-eight archaeologically derived chicken bones provide support
for archaeological hypotheses about the prehistoric human transport of chickens. Haplogroup E mtDNA signatures have
been amplified from directly dated samples originating in Europe at 1000 B.P. and in the Pacific at 3000 B.P. indicating
multiple prehistoric dispersals from a single Asian centre. These two dispersal pathways converged in the Americas where
chickens were introduced both by Polynesians and later by Europeans. The results of this study also highlight the
inappropriate application of the small stretch of D-loop, traditionally amplified for use in phylogenetic studies, to
understanding discrete episodes of chicken translocation in the past. The results of this study lead to the proposal of four
hypotheses which will require further scrutiny and rigorous future testing.

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Research paper thumbnail of 2016 Schätze der Archäologie Vietnams. Herausgegeben vom LWL-Museum für Archäologie Herne, dem Staatlichen Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz, der Curt-Engelhorn-Stiftung für die Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim, dem Deutschen Archäologischen Institut Berlin/Bonn durch Andreas Reinecke

This 600-pages publication was printed for the exhibition "Treasures of Vietnamese Archaeology", ... more This 600-pages publication was printed for the exhibition "Treasures of Vietnamese Archaeology", which was shown in Germany at the museums in Herne, Chemnitz and Mannheim from October 2016 to January 2018. Since April 2018, the exhibition can also be seen at the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi.
The catalogue contains 15 detailed essays on the various periods and on some special topics. Besides, 19 short contributions mainly on important archaeological sites are included as well as detailed descriptions of around 350 exhibits from all periods of Vietnam's prehistory and history from the whole country.

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Research paper thumbnail of Social responses to climate change in Iron Age north-east Thailand: new archaeobotanical evidence

New evidence from archaeological investigations in north-east Thailand shows a transition in rice... more New evidence from archaeological investigations in north-east Thailand shows a transition in rice farming towards wetland cultivation that would have facilitated greater yields and surpluses. This evidence, combined with new dates and palaeoclimatic data, suggests that this transition took place in the Iron Age, at a time of increasingly arid climate, and when a number of broader societal changes become apparent in the archaeological record. For the first time, it is possible to relate changes in subsistence economy to shifts in regional climate and water-management strategies, and to the
emergence of state societies in Southeast Asia.

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Research paper thumbnail of Social Change and its Impact on Health at the late Iron Age Site of Non Ban Jak, Northeast Thailand.

Podium presentation given at the 16th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Poznan, Poland, 2017

A recent reassessment of the timing of social and technological developments in northeast Thailan... more A recent reassessment of the timing of social and technological developments in northeast Thailand has revealed that these changes occurred rapidly and relatively late in the region. In particular, major social changes including a shift to a hierarchical mode of social organisation and the putative development of social inequality, have been identified within the Iron Age (500 BCE – 500 CE). Multidisciplinary research conducted elsewhere in the world has demonstrated the negative health effects resulting from the development of social inequality, but the impact that this change had on the health of prehistoric people of northeast Thailand is as yet poorly understood. This paper outlines the preliminary findings of PhD research being conducted on the human skeletal remains from Non Ban Jak in northeast Thailand. This research is part of a larger interdisciplinary study on this late Iron Age site and aims to identify and qualify social change and its effects on physiological stress and health from a biocultural theoretical perspective. Physiological stress is investigated through analyses of long bone length and dental enamel defects in a sample of over 160 adult and subadults. Geographic Information
System analyses of the spatial patterning of burials and archaeological analyses of mortuary goods are used to identify different social groups within the site. It is expected that there will be variation in stress levels and the material culture associated with each group, indicating social inequality. The prestige value of the mortuary goods will relate to with skeletal stress, though this relationship is predicted to fluctuate over time. These fluctuations may represent the shifting social status of each group within a flexible form of hierarchy.

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Research paper thumbnail of A Biosocial Study of Late Iron Age Social Organisation and its Influence on Health at Non Ban Jak, Northeast Thailand.

Podium presentation given at the 2nd SEAMEO SPAFA International Conference of Southeast Asian Archaeology. Bangkok, Thailand, 2016

Prehistoric social organisation in northeast Thailand has long been debated by archaeologists, wi... more Prehistoric social organisation in northeast Thailand has long been debated by archaeologists, with hierarchy and/or heterarchy being the organisational models favoured for the area. This debate has been based on the analysis of grave ‘wealth’, spatial distribution of burials, and mortuary practices, as these aspects of mortuary ritual are believed to reflect social status. Amounts of physical labour and access to food and healthcare can also vary according to social standing and low social status has been associated with poor health. Biological health can be assessed using human skeletal remains. We present a proposal for an interdisciplinary investigation of social organisation and its influences on health at Non Ban Jak in northeast Thailand. This site dates to the late Iron Age (300 – 500AD) and features a well-preserved skeletal sample numbering ~142 individuals. Non Ban Jak therefore provides an excellent opportunity to observe changes in social organisation and health immediately prior to the formation of complex polities in Southeast Asia. We aim to investigate status variation within the site from a biosocial perspective through an analysis of health (as represented by growth and developmental defects of dental enamel), demography, temporal and spatial patterning in burials, mortuary practices and grave goods. Proposed methods for these analyses will be outlined. It is hypothesised that different status groups will be recognised at the site, and that the status differences observed at the site will reflect a flexible yet hierarchical form of social organisation. It is expected that higher status will buffer against the deterioration of biological health.

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