Intensive Archaeological Survey in Southeast Asia: Methodological and Metallurgical Insights from Khao Sai On, Central Thailand (original) (raw)
Related papers
2007a On the Origins of Metallurgy in Prehistoric Southeast Asia: the View from Thailand
Research over the last 30 years has markedly improved our understanding of metallurgical developments in prehistoric Thailand. The chronology of its earliest appearance, however, remains under debate. Current evidence suggests that tin-bronze metallurgy appeared rather abruptly as a full-blown technology by the mid-2nd millennium BC. Questions also continue to arise as to the sources of the technology. Current arguments no longer favour an indigenous origin; researchers are increasingly pointing north into what is today modern China, linking metallurgical developments to the regions of the Yangtze valley and Lingnan and their ties to sophisticated bronze-making traditions which began during the Erlitou (c. 1900-1500 BC) and the Erligang (1600-1300 BC) cultures in the Central Plain of the Huanghe. In turn, links between this early 2nd-millennium BC metallurgical tradition and the easternmost extensions of Eurasian Steppe cultures to the north and west of China have been explored recently by a number of scholars. This paper assesses broadly the evidence for 'looking north' into China and eventually to its Steppe borderlands as possible sources of traditions, which, over time, may be linked to the coming of tin-bronze in Thailand/Southeast Asia.
The Origins of Metallurgy in Prehistoric Southeast Asia: The View from Thailand
Research over the last 30 years has markedly improved our understanding of metallurgical developments in prehistoric Thailand. The chronology of its earliest appearance, however, remains under debate. Current evidence suggests that tin-bronze metallurgy appeared rather abruptly as a full-blown technology by the mid-2nd millennium BC. Questions also continue to arise as to the sources of the technology. Current arguments no longer favour an indigenous origin; researchers are increasingly pointing north into what is today modern China, linking metallurgical developments to the regions of the Yangtze valley and Lingnan and their ties to sophisticated bronze-making traditions which began during the Erlitou (c. 1900-1500 BC) and the Erligang (c. 1600-1300 BC) cultures in the Central Plain of the Huanghe. In turn, links between this early 2nd-millennium BC metallurgical tradition and the easternmost extensions of Eurasian Steppe cultures to the north and west of China have been explored recently by a number of scholars. This paper assesses broadly the evidence for 'looking north' into China and eventually to its Steppe borderlands as possible sources of traditions, which, over time, may be linked to the coming of tin-bronze in Thailand/Southeast Asia.
On the origins of metallurgy in prehistoric Southeast Asia: The View from Thailand
ABSTRACT Research over the last 30 years has markedly improved our understanding of metallurgical developments in prehistoric Thailand. The chronology of its earliest appearance, however, remains under debate. Current evidence suggests that tin-bronze metallurgy appeared rather abruptly as a full-blown technology by the mid-2nd millennium BC. Questions also continue to arise as to the sources of the technology. Current arguments no longer favour an indigenous origin; research- ers are increasingly pointing north into what is today modern China, linking metallurgical developments to the regions of the Yangtze valley and Lingnan and their ties to sophisticated bronze-making traditions which began during the Erlitou (c. 1900–1500 BC) and the Erligang (c. 1600–1300 BC) cultures in the Central Plain of the Huanghe. In turn, links between this early 2nd-millennium BC metallurgical tradition and the easternmost extensions of Eurasian Steppe cultures to the north and west of China have been explored recently by a number of scholars. This paper assesses broadly the evidence for ‘looking north’ into China and eventually to its Steppe borderlands as possible sources of traditions, which, over time, may be linked to the coming of tin-bronze in Thailand/Southeast Asia.
Archaeometry, 2010
and first published bronze artefacts in claimed early/middle third millennium BCE contexts from northeastern Thailand, igniting a regional 'origins' of metallurgy debate that has smouldered for 40 years (e.g., White and Hamilton 2009, Higham in press). In this paper, we present the results of a lead isotope pilot study centred on the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand-currently Southeast Asia's only documented prehistoric copper smelting locale. These preliminary data indicate that our ongoing regional metal exchange research programme may be able to elucidate interaction networks between copper-producing and -consuming societies within and beyond Southeast Asia from c. 2000 BCE to c. 500 CE. Furthermore, we are able to offer tentative evidence relevant to 'Rapid Eurasian Technological Expansion Model'for the Sino-Siberian derivation of regional metal technologies around the turn of the third/second millennium BCE.
Asian Perspectives 50.1: 53-69, 2013
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.
2011 The Origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia
) 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.