Ref ID:	24054
Ref Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Thomas, Richard McLauchlan, Ronald
Title:	Dating Vietnamese prehistory: towards the establishment of a secure database for archaeological 14C measurements
Date:	2006
Source:	Uncovering Southeast Asia's past: selected papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists
Place of Publication:	Singapore
Publisher:	National University of Singapore Press
Abstract:	The period since Vietnamese independence in 1976 has witnessed a spectacular growth of science-based archaeology. Developments in fieldwork have gone hand-in-hand with extensions of science-based analyses to material remains, with the result that the diachronic framework for cultural change within Viet Nam is now said to be established using 14C-dating, rather than the cultural evolutionism used previously. Dates, which are found dispersed within a rapidly expanding corpus of archaeological literature, seem to provide corroborative proof for models of cultural exchange based upon the flow of traded prestige items such as beads or bronzes (Bellina 2003). The present paper critically examines the radiocarbon dates pertinent to Vietnamese archaeology in particular. Its aim is to determine whether the growing database of radiocarbon determinations for Southeast Asia really do corroborate explanations for the development of complex societies in the manner archaeologists currently envisage.
Date Created:	10/4/2006
Editors:	Bacus, Elisabeth A. Glover, Ian C. Pigott, Vincent C.
Page Start:	184
Page End:	195