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Debating a great site: Ban Non Wat and the wider prehistory of Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2015

C.F.W. Higham
C.F.W. Higham*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago, Richardson Building, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand (Email: charles.higham@otago.ac.nz)
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Extract

Almost half a century has elapsed since the first area excavation of a prehistoric site in north-east Thailand at Non Nok Tha (Bayard & Solheim 2010) (Figure 1). A long and still unresolved debate has ensued, centred on the chronology of the establishment of rice farming and bronze casting, that has dovetailed with further controversies on the pace and nature of social change. Results obtained during the past 20 years of fieldwork focused on the upper Mun Valley of north-east Thailand, together with a new series of AMS radiocarbon determinations from key sites, have thrown into sharp relief contrasting interpretations of two issues: one centres on the timing and origin of the Neolithic settlement; the other on the date and impact of copper-base metallurgy. A consensus through debate would bring us to a tipping point that would see Southeast Asian prehistory turn to more interesting issues of cultural change.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 347 , October 2015 , pp. 1211 - 1220
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2015 

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