| Abstract: |
Archaeological excavations at Khao Sek (site code KK) near Lang Suan in 2013 and 2014 by the Franco-Thai Archaeological Mission confirmed the presence of a small industrial and port-of-trade settlement at about 300-200 B.C.E. (Bellina, 2017a), similar in nature smaller in scale and socio-political complexity to the contemporary port settlement at Khao Sam Kaeo located 80 km to the north at the exit of another important transpeninsular route. One important aspect of this project is its focus on technological reconstruction of craft systems for each industry of these port-settlements. This has demonstrated that each industry was cultural hybrid and displayed a similar chaîne opératoire technique, be it ceramic (Favreau, 2017), glass (Dussubieux and Bellina, 2017), stone (Bellina, 2017a), bronze (Pryce and Bellina, 2017). The combination of industrial analysis and settlement data from the port settlements has led Bellina (2017a) to hypothesise a political model of a confederation of trade polities that aimed to control both maritime and transpeninsular routes, arguing that this model could explain the regional diffusion of hybrid craft systems and shared material culture within the South China Sea Sphere of Interaction. The excavation of Khao Sek uncovered a very well-preserved iron smithing workshop with three intact hearths, a stone rubble wall and several tools. This is probably the most intact workshop of its nature found to date in Southeast Asia, and has provided an excellent opportunity to consider the operation of a late prehistoric smithy from a primary archaeological perspective. This paper describes the iron workshop and its contents, discusses the iron artefacts found during excavations as well as those unearthed by local villagers, compares this evidence to the contemporary evidence at Khao Sam Kaeo, and considers its place in the current understanding of iron working in Mainland Southeast Asia both in its own right as an industrial process and in relation to the development of early complex politics.
|
