| Abstract: |
The archaeological site of Doi Pha Kan, located near the famous rock art painting site of Phratu Pha (district of Ban Dong, Mae Mo, Province of Lampang in the North of Thailand), is a rock-shelter set at the eastern wall of the Doi Pha Kan mountain. Several red-ochre painted figures of hands, zoomorphic associated to anthropomorphic forms, as well as geometrics are present. The excavation was undertaken in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology of Silpakorn University of Bangkok and the 8th office of Fine Arts Department of Nan. The deposits of Doi Pha Kan, made of dusty eolian sediments, preserve a rich archaeological field data, that was excavated by a trench system with a thickness of less than 90 cm. At the top of stratigraphic sequence, some burials have been dug on the site. A total of 2,113 lithic artefacts and more than 31,000 faunal remains were collected in the archaeological layer older than the burials. This paper focuses on the lithic artefacts uncovered during the first stage of our excavation but present a regional interest for the definition of Hoabinhian. The lithic assemblage shows that most of these objects were knapped by using blocks of flint or of chert of local origin, collected in the environments close to the site, and some sandstone with fine grains, exploited essentially in the form of pebble. Other raw materials as the limestone, the silicified limestone and more rarely, the quartz were also used. Several chaînes opératoires, bound essentially to the shaping and to the débitage are dependent on types of morphologies and on the quality of the raw material. An important production of flakes obtained by direct percussion is the dominant chaîne opératoire in this assemblage. The shaping, quasi-exclusively on cobble, is represented in lesser proportion than in the Hoabinhian assemblages more commonly present in Southeast Asia. All the elements of the lithic production of débitage are present: the flakes, the chunks, the nucleus as well as the appreciable amount of manuports and tested cobbles. The methods of knapping are rather opportunist on a technological point of view, with in particular, an alternated exploitation of the surfaces without predefined or standardized algorithms. Levallois or discoid chaîne opératoire are absent in the site. If the lithic industry of the Doi Pha Kan can be likened to the Hoabinhian techno-complex, the lack of homogeneity of materials and supports, the poor number of typical tools (unifaces and tools on split of cobbles), as well as the presence of composite tools associated to asymmetric pieces or to limaces suggest a regional variant of Hoabinhian.
|
