| Abstract: |
Early in the second millenium BC the production of copper and bronze began in Southeast Asia. The Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project (TAP), conducted over the past decade, has revealed the presence of major copper mining complexes and associated production settlements, the latter among the largest such sites known in Asia. The combined evidence from these sites comprises much of the primary production data by which the so-called "Southeast Asian Metallurgical Tradition" can be characterized. Broadly speaking this "Tradition," defined in terms of the evidence from Thailand, arose under somewhat unusual conditions. In contrast to most of the major culture areas of the Old World where large scale production of metal, in particular bronze, is associated with complex societies and urban settings, in Southeast Asia current evidence suggests that such metallurgy developed in village contexts. These villages were active in extensive networks of inter-regional exchange, but exhibit only modest degrees of social ranking, at least during the early stages of metallurgy's appearance and development in the prehistoric period. This paper presents an overview of the archaeometallurgical evidence for mining and copper production from recently excavated prehistoric sites in central Thailand. It is argued that production, which will be reviewed for the sites for Non Pa Wai, Nil Kham Haeng, and Non Mak La, was accomplished by a low investment, "low-tech," very labour-intensive method, which was specialized only at the household-family level and which may have been only a dry season industrial activity. Despite this level of production organization, the evidence suggests that prior to the appearance of chiefdom levels of social complexity, and under conditions of economic decentralization, these village-based communities mined significant volumes of ores and produced large amounts of copper.
|
