Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T07:15:51.431Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

At the dawn of history: From Iron Age aggrandisers to Zhenla kings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2016

Charles F.W. Higham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The transition from Late Iron Age to early state societies in the riverine lowlands of the Mun Valley and northern Cambodia took place rapidly in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. Defining the former involves archaeological excavation, whereas the latter is best known from surviving temple structures and inscriptions in addition to the results of archaeological fieldwork. Several common threads link the two phases of cultural development. From the late fifth century BCE, Iron Age communities participated in the growing maritime exchange network linking Southeast Asia with China and India, bringing exotic ideas and goods into the hinterland. Iron itself had a major impact on agriculture and warfare. Salt, a vital commodity that is abundantly available in the Mun Valley, was exploited on an industrial scale. By the fifth century CE, an agricultural revolution involving permanent, probably irrigated, rice fields and ploughing underwrote a rapid rise of social elites. These leaders in society, named in the early historic inscriptions, maintained and elaborated prehistoric innovations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , October 2016 , pp. 418 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Yoffee, Norman, Myths of the archaic state (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 199 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The origins of the civilization of Angkor. Vol. 6; The excavation of Ban Non Wat: The Iron Age, summary and conclusions, ed. Higham, Charles and Kijngam, Amphan (Bangkok: Fine Arts Department, 2012)Google Scholar.

3 Pelliot, Paul, 1903, ‘Le Fou-Nan’, Bulletin de l’École française d'Extrême-Orient (BEFEO) 2 (1903): 248–333 Google Scholar; Jacques, Claude, ‘Notes sur l'inscription de la stèle de Vat Luong Kau’, Journal Asiatique 250, 2 (1962): 249–56Google Scholar.

4 Cœdès, George, Etudes Cambodgiennes XL, ‘III. Nouvelles données sur les origines du royaume khmèr: La stèle de Vat Luong Kau près de Vat Phu’, BEFEO 48, 1 (1956): 209–20Google Scholar.

5 Lorrillard, Michel, ‘Pre-Angkorian communities in the middle Mekong Valley (Laos and adjacent areas)’, in Before Siam: Essays in art and archaeology, ed. Revire, Nicolas and Murphy, Stephen (Bangkok: River Books, 2014), pp. 186–215 Google Scholar.

6 Ibid.

7 Piriya, Krairiksh, The roots of Thai art (Bangkok: River Books, 2012)Google Scholar.

8 Talbot, Sarah and Janthed, Chutima, ‘Northeast Thailand before Angkor: Evidence from an archaeological excavation at Prasat Hin Phimai’, Asian Perspectives 40, 2 (2001): 179–94Google Scholar.

9 Jacques, Claude, ‘The Khmers in Thailand: What the inscriptions inform us’, SPAFA Digest 10, 1 (1989): 16–24 Google Scholar.

10 Shimoda, Ichita and Shimamoto, Sae, ‘Spatial and chronological sketch of the ancient city of Sambor Prei Kuk’, Aséanie 30 (2012): 20–74 Google Scholar; Scott Hawken, ‘Metropolis of ricefields: A topographic classification of a dispersed urban complex’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Sydney, 2011).

11 Duanlin, Ma, Ethnographie des peuples étrangers à la Chine II: Méridionaux, trans. de Saint Denys, Le Marquis d'Hervey (Geneva: H. Georg, 1883)Google Scholar.

12 Vickery, Michael, Society, economics and politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies for Unesco; Toyo Bunko, 1998)Google Scholar; Parmentier, Henri, L'art Khmèr primitif (Paris: G. Vanoest, 1927)Google Scholar.

13 Murphy, this vol., also suggests a similar timescale for Dvaravati in central Thailand.

14 Glenn Scott, ‘Examining the function of circular moated sites in North East Thailand: Agriculture, defence or water storage? A landscape analysis’ (Bachelor of Archaeology Practice diss., Australian National University, 2013), p. 48.

15 Parry, John T., ‘The investigative role of Landsat-TM in the examination of pre- and proto-historic water management sites in Northeast Thailand’, Geocarto International 7, 4 (1992): 5–24 Google Scholar.

16 Rivett, Paul and Higham, Charles F.W., ‘The archaeology of salt production’, in The origins of the civilization of Angkor; Vol. 2, The excavation of Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao, ed. Higham, Charles F.W., Kijngam, Amphan and Talbot, Sarah (Bangkok: FAD, 2007), pp. 589–93Google Scholar.

17 Pryce, Thomas O. and Natapintu, Surapol, ‘Smelting iron from laterite: Technical possibility or ethnographic aberration?’, Asian Perspectives 48, 2 (2009): 249–64Google Scholar.

18 Monkhonkamnuanket, N., Ban Prasat: An archaeological site (in Thai) (Bangkok: FAD, 1992)Google Scholar.

19 Thosarat, Rachanie and Kijngam, Amphan, The excavation of the prehistoric site of Ban Suai (in Thai) (Bangkok: FAD, 2004)Google Scholar.

20 Higham, Charles F.W., ‘The Iron Age of the Mun Valley, Thailand’, Antiquaries Journal 91 (2011): 101–44Google Scholar.

21 Higham and Amphan, The excavation of Ban Non Wat.

22 Dougald J.W. O'Reilly, ‘Non Muang Kao burials’, in Higham et al., The excavation of Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao, pp. 571–4.

23 Higham, Charles, Cameron, Judith, Chang, Nigel, Castillo, Cristina, Halcrow, Siân, O'Reilly, Dougald, Petchey, Fiona and Shewan, Louise, ‘The excavation of Non Ban Jak, Northeast Thailand: A report on the first three seasons’, Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 34 (2014): 1–41 Google Scholar.

24 Ibid.

25 McGrath, William J. and Boyd, William E., ‘The chronology of the Iron Age “moats” of northeast Thailand’, Antiquity 75 (2001): 349–60Google Scholar.

26 Parry, ‘The investigative role of Landsat-TM’, pp. 5–24.

27 Hawken, ‘Metropolis of ricefields’.

28 Higham et al., ‘The excavation of Non Ban Jak’: 37–9.

29 Morag McCaw, ‘The faunal remains’, in Higham et al., The excavation of Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao, pp. 495–521.

30 Nigel Chang, pers. comm.

31 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The social contract and discourses (London: J.M. Dent, 1913)Google Scholar.

32 Goody, Jack, Technology, tradition and the state in Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1971)Google Scholar.

33 Rispoli, Fiorella, Ciarla, Roberto and Pigott, Vincent C., ‘Establishing the prehistoric cultural sequence for the Lopburi region, central Thailand’, Journal of World Prehistory 26 (2013): 101–71Google Scholar.

34 Adams, Ron L. and King, Stacie M., ‘Residential burial in global perspective’, in Residential burial: A multiregional exploration, ed. Adams, Ron L. and King, Stacie M. (Malden, MA: Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 20, Wiley, 2011), pp. 1–16 Google Scholar.

35 Nicola Laneri, ‘A family affair: The use of intramural funerary chambers in Mesopotamia during the later third and early second millennia B.C.E.’, in Adams and King, Residential burial, pp. 121–35.

36 Rivett and Higham, ‘The archaeology of salt production’, pp. 589–93; Nitta, Eiji, ‘Iron-smelting and salt-making industries in Northeast Thailand’, Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 16 (1997): 153–60Google Scholar.

37 Domett, Kate M., O'Reilly, Dougald J.W. and Buckley, Hallie, ‘Biological evidence for conflict in Iron Age northwest Cambodia’, Antiquity 85, 328 (2011): 441–58Google Scholar.

38 Flannery, Kent, ‘Process and agency in early state formation’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9, 1 (1999): 3–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flannery, Kent and Marcus, Joyce, The creation of inequality: How our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery and empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

39 Yoffee, Myths of the archaic state, p. 199.

40 Jacob, Judith M., ‘Pre-Angkor Cambodia: Evidence from the inscriptions concerning the common people and their environment’, in Early South East Asia, ed. Smith, Ralph B. and Watson, William (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 406–26Google Scholar.

41 Vickery, Society, economics and politics, p. 144.

42 Sanderson, Alexis, ‘The Śaiva religion among the Khmers (Part I)’, BEFEO 90–91 (2003–04): 349–462 Google Scholar.

43 Vickery, Society, economics and politics, p. 185.