| Abstract: |
Introduction: The Dong Son ("East Mountain") Bronze Age culture of the Red River delta of northern Viet Nam has been known since the 1930s. The original finds date to the colonial period and were handsomely described by Goloubew (1929, 1937) and Janse (1958). They include the now familiar and characteristic bronze drums and weapons, burial situlae (bucket-shaped ceramic and bronze vessels), and concentric decorative motifs. Subsequent research, including a plethora of recent work by the Vietnamese themselves (Hoang and Bui 1980), reveals the Dong Son cultural complex as a northern center of a widespread bronzeliron complex found throughout Viet Nam and the rest of Southeast Asia. It represents an <i>in situ</i> development from preceding Neolithic phases in the vicinity of the Red, Ma, and Ca river systems. Between 1955 and 1960, 50 tombs were discovered at Shizhai Shan, Jinning, in Yunnan Province (Fig. 1). This far-distant region was known as the kingdom of Tien during the western Han period (206 B.C.-A.D. 9). The archaeological investigations revealed a rich Bronze Age culture with multiform affinities, including some with the roughly contemporaneous Dong Son to the southeast. Continuing excavations in Yunnan and western Sichuan have greatly expanded both the geographical and material cultural bases of Tien society, but its relationships to contemporary first-millennium B. c. chiefdoms and states in northern Southeast Asia remains hazy. The purpose of this paper is to systematically explore the links between the Lake Tien complex in Yunnan Province and the Dong Son cultural complex of northern Viet Nam.
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