Mainland Southeast Asia from the Neolithic to the Iron Age

Abstract

This chapter presents a series of major cultural changes on the mainland of Southeast Asia which were ultimately to set the stage for the development of the first civilizations. The culture of early hunting and gathering coastal groups in Thailand and Vietnam has recently been illuminated by two excavations in the Gulf of Siam and by an increasing number of investigations at sites located on the raised beaches of Vietnam. Khok Phanom Di was probably abandoned in the mid-second millennium bc. The inhabitants of Phung Nguyen also fashioned stone rings, mostly in nephrite. Most Bronze Age settlements are found in the small stream valleys which feed the major rivers of Mainland Southeast Asia. They were linked by far-reaching exchange networks which saw marine shell reaching settlements over 1,000 km from the coast, and copper and tin entering villages far removed from the ore sources.

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