How it began
The jars were made on a plateau in central Laos, in what is now Xiengkhuang Province, by an Iron Age society about which little is known. UNESCO dates the sites to between 500 BCE and 500 CE, and possibly as late as 800 CE. More than 2,100 tubular megalithic stone jars survive, set on hill slopes and spurs around the central plateau, together with stone discs, secondary burials, tombstones, quarries and funerary objects.
How it works
Each jar is a large tubular vessel carved from stone. UNESCO notes that the jars are well crafted and required technological skill both to produce and to move from the quarry locations to the funerary sites. Researchers from the University of Melbourne report jars weighing up to 20 tonnes that were transported from quarry sites eight to ten kilometers away. Chemical fingerprints are used to match jars to quarries, but the actual method of transport remains unknown.
What changed first
The jars served funerary practices. Human remains, including teeth, have been found buried around them, and the sites include secondary burials and grave goods. UNESCO places the Plain of Jars at a historical crossroads between two major cultural systems of Iron Age Southeast Asia, the Mun-Mekong system and the Red River and Gulf of Tonkin system. The society that made the jars used them until it disappeared around 500 CE.
What lasted
The French archaeologist Madeleine Colani excavated the sites in the 1930s for the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient and concluded that the Plain of Jars was an Iron Age burial site. UNESCO describes the jars and associated elements as the most prominent evidence of the civilization that made them, and as an exceptional testimony to its funerary practices over roughly a thousand years.
Where it stands today
The Megalithic Jar Sites in Xiengkhuang, a serial property of 15 components, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in July 2019. Since 2016 an Australian Research Council funded team led by Louise Shewan of the University of Melbourne, Dougald O'Reilly of the Australian National University and Thonglith Luangkoth of the Lao Department of Heritage has studied the sites. Unexploded ordnance left from the Vietnam War era remains a hazard for research and visitors.
