Ref ID:	37758
Ref Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Pigott, Vincent C. Ciarla, Roberto
Title:	On the Origins of metallurgy in Prehistoric Southeast Asia: the view from Thailand
Date:	2007
Source:	Metal and Mines: studies in archaeometallurgy
Place of Publication:	London
Publisher:	Archetype Books
Abstract:	Research over the last 30 years has markedly improved our understanding of metallurgical developments in prehistoric Thailand. The chronology of its earliest appearance, however, remains under debate. Current evidence suggests that tin-bronze metallurgy appeared rather abruptly as a full-blown technology by the mid-2nd millennium BC. Questions also continue to arise as to the sources of the technology. Current arguments no longer favour an indigenous origin; research- ers are increasingly pointing north into what is today modern China, linking metallurgical developments to the regions of the Yangtze valley and Lingnan and their ties to sophisticated bronze-making traditions which began during the Erlitou (c. 1900–1500 BC) and the Erligang (c. 1600–1300 BC) cultures in the Central Plain of the Huanghe. In turn, links between this early 2nd-millennium BC metallurgical tradition and the easternmost extensions of Eurasian Steppe cultures to the north and west of China have been explored recently by a number of scholars. This paper assesses broadly the evidence for ‘looking north’ into China and eventually to its Steppe borderlands as possible sources of traditions, which, over time, may be linked to the coming of tin-bronze in Thailand/Southeast Asia.
Editors:	La Niece, Susan Hook, Duncan Craddock, Paul
Page Start:	76
Page End:	88