Trade, Culture and Society in Thailand before 1200AD

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of the vibrant sociocultural complexes inhabiting the geographic area between the Mekong and the Salween river systems in pre- and proto-historic times up to 1200 AD. Our knowledge of these cultures has increased in recent decades thanks to the multidisciplinary research undertaken by Charles Higham, Dhida Saraya, Srisakra Vallibhotama, Bennet Bronson, Donn Bayard and others whose work has complemented that of the linguists, art historians and scientists to bring to life the sophisticated societies which evolved on the Khorat plateau in northeast Thailand, in the Chao Phraya valley, and on the peninsula of southern Thailand long before the declaration of independence from the Khmer overlord at Sukhothai in the mid-thirteenth century. Far from being a vacuum with little social, cultural or political development, we now know that these socio-cultural complexes had extensive intra-regional, interregional, and international trading networks complementing their own indigenous developments, long before the appearance of the Greco-Roman trading ships in the harbours of the Coromandel and Malabar coasts of India in the first and second centuries AD. The pattern of indigenous relationships gave rise to the early Bronze and Iron Age civilizations in this region and made these socio-cultural complexes a cornerstone in the reinterpretation of Thai history.

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