Credited to Thailand. The dating is contested between sources. UNESCO places the earliest layers and the start of the site's development at about 1500 BCE. The Penn Museum, which excavated the site, says the villages practiced complex metallurgy nearly four thousand years ago. Both treat the technology as arising in this area of Southeast Asia.
How it began
Ban Chiang is a large prehistoric earthen mound in Udon Thani province in northeastern Thailand, with both living and burial areas. UNESCO describes it as the center of a cultural, social and technological development that occurred independently in this part of Southeast Asia, beginning around 1500 BCE. The Penn Museum states that Ban Chiang and nearby villages were practicing complex metallurgy in small, peaceful village settings nearly four thousand years ago. The makers were early farmers whose names are not known.
Before it existed
Before these finds, Southeast Asia was long considered a passive neighbor of the complex states of India and China, a region that received its technology from outside. The Penn Museum says the evidence showed metallurgy there about 1,500 years earlier than previously thought.
How it works
The site preserves the whole chain of bronze-making. UNESCO lists remains of raw materials, production facilities and complete bronze tools and ornaments. The metalwork sits alongside evidence of wet rice agriculture, domesticated farm animals and ceramic manufacture, in an unbroken sequence of habitation, use and burial lasting over two thousand years. Burials from later periods also contain iron grave goods and red-on-buff painted pottery.
What lasted
The site was discovered in 1966. In 1974 and 1975 the Penn Museum and the Thai Fine Arts Department excavated it under Chester Gorman and Pisit Charoenwongsa, recovering six tons of pottery, stone and metal artifacts. The Penn Museum says the results shifted the understanding of Southeast Asian archaeology. UNESCO states that the development that began at Ban Chiang spread widely over the whole region.
Where it stands today
Ban Chiang became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992, and a site museum stands nearby. Analysis continues under Joyce White, project director since 1981, who has overseen monographs on the metals. From 2005 to 2014 she assisted a United States investigation that recovered over 10,000 looted artifacts from Ban Chiang and other prehistoric Thai sites.
