Abstract
There are two models for the origins and timing of the Bronze Age in Southeast Asia. The first centres on the sites of Ban Chiang and Non Nok Tha in Northeast Thailand. It places the first evidence for bronze technology in about 2000 B.C., and identifies the origin by means of direct contact with specialists of the Seima Turbino metallurgical tradition of Central Eurasia. The second is based on the site of Ban Non Wat, 280 km southwest of Ban Chiang, where extensive radiocarbon dating places the transition into the Bronze Age in the 11th century B.C. with likely origins in a southward expansion of technological expertise rooted in the early states of the Yellow and Yangtze valleys, China. We have redated Ban Chiang and Non Nok Tha, as well as the sites of Ban Na Di and Ban Lum Khao, and here present 105 radiocarbon determinations that strongly support the latter model. The statistical analysis of the results using a Bayesian approach allows us to examine the data at a regional level, elucidate the timing of arrival of copper base technology in Southeast Asia and consider its social impact.
Highlights
Two conflicting chronological models exist for the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia [1,2]
Attempts to build a chronological framework for the Southeast Asian Bronze Age and thereby understand the social impact of copper base technology in the region resulted in PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone
Burial 72 from Early Periods (EP) II-III has been cited as evidence for the LCM by the presence of a flat piece of bronze at the bottom of the grave [1]
Summary
Two conflicting chronological models exist for the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia [1,2]. The presence of an independent Bronze Age in Southeast Asia was first identified and evaluated in the 1870s in the wake of the establishment of a French protectorate over the Kingdom of Cambodia. Further prehistoric bronzes were recovered with the expansion of fieldwork into Laos [5]. In the 1960s, a stratigraphic sequence spanning the Neolithic into the early Bronze Age was identified at the northeastern Thai site of Non Nok Tha [6], confirmed in 1974–5 at Ban Chiang [7]. Attempts to build a chronological framework for the Southeast Asian Bronze Age and thereby understand the social impact of copper base technology in the region resulted in PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0137542. Attempts to build a chronological framework for the Southeast Asian Bronze Age and thereby understand the social impact of copper base technology in the region resulted in PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0137542 September 18, 2015
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