Author: Elizabeth G Hamilton
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum
ISBN: 1934536997
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
This third volume in the series is devoted to presenting and interpreting the metallurgical evidence from Ban Chiang, northeast Thailand, in the broader regional context. Because the production of metal artifacts must engage numerous communities in order to acquire and process the raw materials and then create and distribute products, understanding metals in past societies requires a regional perspective. This is the first book to compile, summarize, and synthesize the English-language copper production and exchange evidence available so far from Thailand and Laos in a thorough and systematic manner. Chapters by Vincent C. Pigott and Thomas O. Pryce examine in detail the mining and smelting of copper in several sites, and the lead-isotope evidence for the sourcing of artifacts found in two of the consumption sites included in the study. Another chapter compiles the metal consumption evidence, including results of technical studies on prehistoric metals recovered from more than 35 sites excavated in central and northeast Thailand. This compilation demonstrates important regional variation in chaOEnes opEratoires, allowing explication and synthesis of the technological traditions found in this region during prehistory. The review and compilation sheds new light on the social and economic context for the adoption and development of metallurgy in this part of the world. One key insight is that Thailand presents a case for a "community-driven bronze age," where the choices of peaceful local communities, not elites or centralized political entities, shaped how metal technological systems were implemented in this region. This fresh perspective on the role of metallurgy in ancient societies contributes to an expanded global understanding of how humans have engaged metal technologies, contributing to debunking the conventional paradigm that emphasized a top-down view and a standardized metallurgical sequence, a paradigm that has dominated archeometallurgical studies for the last century or more.
Author: Joyce C. White
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
ISBN: 1931707936
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
This third volume in the series is devoted to presenting and interpreting the metallurgical evidence from Ban Chiang, northeast Thailand, in the broader regional context. Because the production of metal artifacts must engage numerous communities in order to acquire and process the raw materials and then create and distribute products, understanding metals in past societies requires a regional perspective. This is the first book to compile, summarize, and synthesize the English-language copper production and exchange evidence available so far from Thailand and Laos in a thorough and systematic manner. Chapters by Vincent C. Pigott and Thomas O. Pryce examine in detail the mining and smelting of copper in several sites, and the lead-isotope evidence for the sourcing of artifacts found in two of the consumption sites included in the study. Another chapter compiles the metal consumption evidence, including results of technical studies on prehistoric metals recovered from more than 35 sites excavated in central and northeast Thailand. This compilation demonstrates important regional variation in chaînes opératoires, allowing explication and synthesis of the technological traditions found in this region during prehistory. The review and compilation sheds new light on the social and economic context for the adoption and development of metallurgy in this part of the world. One key insight is that Thailand presents a case for a "community-driven bronze age," where the choices of peaceful local communities, not elites or centralized political entities, shaped how metal technological systems were implemented in this region. This fresh perspective on the role of metallurgy in ancient societies contributes to an expanded global understanding of how humans have engaged metal technologies, contributing to debunking the conventional paradigm that emphasized a top-down view and a standardized metallurgical sequence, a paradigm that has dominated archeometallurgical studies for the last century or more. Thai Archaeology Monograph Series, 2C University Museum Monograph, 153
Author: Joyce C. White
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
ISBN: 1931707219
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
The emergence and adoption of metallurgy is one of the seminal topics of investigation in the history of archaeology, particularly in the history of archaeological research in Southeast Asia. The site of Ban Chiang, Thailand, is a central site in debates surrounding the chronology and significance of early metallurgy in the region. This book is the first in a series of four volumes that review the contributions of Ban Chiang and three related sites in northeast Thailand excavated by the Penn Museum to an understanding early metallurgy in Thailand. As the study of archaeometallurgy is a complex topic that draws on numerous technical and social science disciplines, this introductory volume presents in several chapters the background needed to assess the metal and related evidence presented in the subsequent volumes in this series. A history of perspectives on the role of metals in ancient societies generally and Southeast Asia, specifically, is provided. Other chapters debunk the conventional paradigm for understanding metals and society and provide current theoretical perspectives and new paradigms for the study of ancient metals. The geological basis for the presence and location of metal ore resources in the region is reviewed. The final chapter presents a technical overview of ways material properties of ancient metals may be studied. While providing a background to the study of metals at Ban Chiang, the volume also reviews, synthesizes, and repositions the method and theory for the study of archaeometallurgy generally. Thai Archaeology Monograph Series, 2A; University Museum Monograph, 149
Author: Joyce C. White
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0934718695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
Scholars of ancient metallurgy gain insights from individual artifacts as well as from synthetic overviews because debates can turn on details of particular objects from particular contexts. Therefore, it is important for archaeometallurgical studies to provide comprehensive catalogs that specify the attributes of individual objects as well as contexts and the technical studies undertaken on those objects. This fourth volume in the series is devoted to presenting the metallurgical evidence from Ban Chiang, Ban Tong, Ban Phak Top, and Don Klang in northeast Thailand in the form of detailed catalogs organized by sites, periods, and artifact types. All metal artifacts, metallic by-products, and crucibles from the four-site study are included. A catalog of analyzed prills is also included. The catalogs summarize all the contextual, metric, and analytical data from metallographic, elemental, and microhardness analyses. Illustrations and photomicrographs provide visual evidence for the study collection. These kinds of detailed catalogs form the raw material of technical and archaeological interpretation, enabling comparisons with other collections as well as allowing scholars to form their own conclusions independently of the interpretations of the authors.
Author: Joyce C. White
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
ISBN: 1931707782
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
The foundation of archaeometallurgy is the study of excavated assemblages of metals and related remains. This volume presents in detail how the metals and such remains as crucibles excavated from four sites in northeast Thailand have been studied to understand the place of metal objects and technology in the ancient past of this region. In addition to typological examination, hundreds of technical analyses reveal the technological capabilities, preferences, and styles of metal artifact manufacturers in this part of Thailand. Detailed examination of contexts of recovery of metal remains employing a "life history" approach indicates that metal objects in those societies were used primarily in daily life and, only occasionally, as grave goods. The most surprising find is that casting of copper-base artifacts to final form took place at all these village sites during the metal age period, indicating a decentralized final production stage that may prove to be unusual for metal age societies. These insights are made possible by applying the methods and theories introduced in the first volume of the suite of volumes that study the metal remains from Ban Chiang in regional contest. Thai Archaeology Monograph Series, 2B University Museum Monograph, 150
Author: Michael Pietrusewsky
Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology
ISBN: 9780924171925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 524
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Book Description
The inaugural volume in the Thai Archaeology Monograph Series describes in detail the human skeletal remains from Ban Chiang in northeast Thailand. The skeletal material spans a period from 2100 B.C. to A.D. 200 and includes premetal, Bronze Age, and Iron Age deposits from a series of prehistoric societies. The history of Homo sapiens in Asia has long been a topic of interest among scholars investigating human biology. This study, which is based on one of the larger, comprehensively analyzed skeletal series ever excavated in the region, makes fundamental contributions to understanding human settlement in eastern Asia. The volume includes detailed summaries of metric and nonmetric variation recorded in teeth, skulls, and the rest of the skeleton, and evidence of disease of the Ban Chiang people. These data are used to examine a number of questions: Where did the people of Ban Chiang come from? Did more intensified agriculture influence the health of the people? How do the people of Ban Chiang compare to the inhabitants of other ancient sites in Thailand and to the modern peoples of Thailand and neighboring regions? Contrary to other groups experiencing similar transitions elsewhere in the world, no clear evidence for a decline in health over time is noted in the Ban Chiang skeletal series, suggesting continuity in a broad-based subsistence strategy even in the face of intensifying agriculture. The skeletal evidence further suggests a rigorous physical lifestyle with little evidence for infectious disease or interpersonal violence. Content of this book's CD-ROM may be found online at this location: http://core.tdar.org/project/376534. Thai Archaeology Monograph Series Joyce C. White, Series Editor University Museum Monograph, 111
Author: Elizabeth G. Hamilton
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum
ISBN: 1931707928
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285
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Book Description
The foundation of archaeometallurgy is the study of excavated assemblages of metals and related remains. This volume presents in detail how the metals and such remains as crucibles excavated from four sites in northeast Thailand have been studied to understand the place of metal objects and technology in the ancient past of this region. In addition to typological examination, hundreds of technical analyses reveal the technological capabilities, preferences, and styles of metal artifact manufacturers in this part of Thailand. Detailed examination of contexts of recovery of metal remains employing a "life history" approach indicates that metal objects in those societies were used primarily in daily life and, only occasionally, as grave goods. The most surprising find is that casting of copper-base artifacts to final form took place at all these village sites during the metal age period, indicating a decentralized final production stage that may prove to be unusual for metal age societies. These insights are made possible by applying the methods and theories introduced in the first volume of the suite of volumes that study the metal remains from Ban Chiang in regional contest.
Author: Charles Higham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521565059
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 404
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Book Description
This book addresses the controversy over the origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Charles Higham provides a systematic and regional presentation of the current evidence. He suggests that the adoption of metallurgy in the region followed a period of growing exchange with China. Higham then traces the development of Bronze Age cultures, identifying regionality and innovation, and suggesting how and why distinct cultures developed. This book is the first comprehensive study of the period, placed within a broader comparative framework.
Author: Maurizio Peleggi
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824866096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Ranging across the longue durée of Thailand’s history, Monastery, Monument, Museum is an eminently readable and original contribution to the study of the kingdom’s art and culture. Eschewing issues of dating, style, and iconography, historian Maurizio Peleggi addresses distinct types of artifacts and artworks as both the products and vehicles of cultural memory. From the temples of Chiangmai to the Emerald Buddha, from the National Museum of Bangkok to the prehistoric culture of Northeast Thailand, and from the civic monuments of the 1930s to the political artworks of the late twentieth century, even well-known artworks and monuments reveal new meanings when approached from this perspective. Part I, “Sacred Geographies,” focuses on the premodern era, when religious credence informed the cultural alteration of landscape, and devotional sites and artifacts, including visual representation of the Buddhist cosmology, were created. Part II, “Antiquities, Museums, and National History,” covers the 1830s through the 1970s, when antiquarianism, and eventually archaeology, emerged and developed in the kingdom, partly the result of a shift in the elites’ worldview and partly a response to colonial and neocolonial projects of knowledge. Part III, “Discordant Mnemoscapes,” deals with civic monuments and artworks that anchor memory of twentieth-century political events and provide stages for both their commemoration and counter-commemoration by evoking the country’s embattled political present. Monastery, Monument, Museum shows us how cultural memory represents a kind of palimpsest, the result of multiple inscriptions, reworkings, and manipulations over time. The book will be a rewarding read for historians, art historians, anthropologists, and Buddhism scholars working on Thailand and Southeast Asia generally, as well as for academic and general readers with an interest in memory and material culture.
Author: Charles Higham
Publisher: Fine Arts Department of Thailand
ISBN: 974417823X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 657
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Book Description
Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao are two large, moated prehistoric settlements in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Northeast Thailand. Excavations in 1997-8 revealed a cultural sequence that began in the late Bronze Age, followed by four mortuary phases covering the Iron Age. This report describes the palaeoenvironment, excavation, chronology and material culture, human remains and social structure of the prehistoric inhabitants of these two sites. It is the second volume reporting on the research programme "The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor".
