| Abstract: |
Increased social stratification and complexity are indicators of major socio-cultural changes for a prehistoric community. Human lifeways, general well-beings and diet in particular, is often directly impacted by these social processes, and may be reflected in mortuary contexts. In prehistoric times, central Thailand was an area with vast ecological and cultural diversity which subsequently became the epicenter of Dvaravati, a prosperous state and cultural entity of Dvaravati in early historic period. During the course of the Metal Age, archaeological evidence suggests that this area underwent gradual but significant changes in social and subsistence due to increased regional interaction, integration, and adoption of newly introduced cultigens. Using paleopathological and light stable isotopic ratios, this study aims to delineate the impact of social complexity change on human skeletal health and dietary change through time on intra- and inter-site levels. Based on the assumption that people occupying different social strata having different access/preference to resources and practicing varied tasks, it is hypothesized that as social complexity increased (as evident in mortuary variability), the variation of human skeletal health and dietary composition also increased. In addition, this study assesses health life history and dietary pattern on a site level to be used in cross-regional comparison. Human and faunal skeletal remains from central Thai archaeological sites are incorporated. The results indicate that no detectable health and dietary changes were associated with social status differentiation during the Metal Age in central Thailand. The lack of biological impact from social change is interpreted as either social status expressed in burial did not entail differentiation of resource access and daily tasks in life, or the inherent ecological variability within the region facilitated a tradition of highly inert and locale-specific human biology that endured the impact of social structure change through time. Previous archaeological, cultural, and biological research of Mainland Southeast Asia appears to support the latter interpretation. This study provides a large-scale regional synthesis on the interaction among social, ecological, and human biological aspects of Metal Age central Thailand that is beneficial for the further understanding of human lifeways and socio-cultural change in a larger Southeast and East Asian context.
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