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Ref ID: 28417
Ref Type: Journal Article
Authors: Higham, Charles
Higham, Thomas
Ciarla, Roberto
Douka, Katerina
Kijngam, Amphan
Rispoli, Fiorella
Title: The origins of the bronze age of Southeast Asia
Date: 2011
Source: Journal of World Prehistory
DOI: 10.1007/s10963-011-9054-6
Abstract: White and Hamilton (J World Prehist 22: 357–97, 2009) have proposed a model for the origin of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age founded on seven AMS radiocarbon determinations from the Northeast Thai site of Ban Chiang, which would date the initial Bronze Age there to about 2000 BC. Since this date is too early for the derivation of a bronze industry from the documented exchange that linked Southeast Asia with Chinese states during the 2nd millennium BC, they have identified the Seima-Turbino 3rd millennium BC forest-steppe technology of the area between the Urals and the Altai as the source of the Southeast Asian Bronze Age. We challenge this model by presenting a new chronological framework for Ban Chiang, which supports our model that the knowledge of bronze metallurgy reached Southeast Asia only in the late 2nd millennium BC, through contact with the states of the Yellow and Yangtze valleys.
Date Created: 2/3/2012
Volume: 24
Number: 4
Page Start: 227
Page End: 274