Established chronologies indicate a long-term ‘Hoabinhian’ hunter-gatherer occupation of Mainland Southeast Asia during the Terminal Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene (45 000–3000 years ago). Here, the authors re-examine the ‘Hoabinhian’ sequence from north-west Thailand using new radiocarbon and luminescence data from Spirit Cave, Steep Cliff Cave and Banyan Valley Cave. The results indicate that hunter-gatherers exploited this ecologically diverse region throughout the Terminal Pleistocene and the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, and into the period during which agricultural lifeways emerged in the Holocene. Hunter-gatherers did not abandon this highland region of Thailand during periods of environmental and socioeconomic change.

Part of the enormous importance of the Spirit Cave pottery lies in the early date (7500BP) implied by radiocarbon dates from charcoal associated with some of the sherds. This was challenged by Lampert et al. who directly dated one Spirit Cave sherd from its resin to 3000 BP (Antiquity 77: 126–133). But here Joyce White argues that the stratigraphic context and typology of the dated sherd do not provide a valid basis to support a revision of dating for the earliest sherds. A response from Lampert et al. follows.