Ban Chiang is…
a village/mortuary site in northern northeast Thailand, in the province of Udon Thani.
Excavated by Chet Gorman of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Pisit Charoenwongsa of the Thai Fine Arts Department in 1974-1975, this extraordinary site was among the first to establish the existence not only of a hitherto unknown prehistoric culture, but also of a separate bronze age in Southeast Asia.
Read the Bangkok Post article…
"Dwelling on the Past: Archaeologist Joyce White talks about her passion for Southeast Asia's rich prehistory"
Dr. Joyce White discusses…
Penn's Luce Program for Asian Archaeology.
bronze bge Archive
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Bronze from Ban Chiang
Posted on August 24, 2009 | No CommentsAn American college student's famous stumble over a tree root that led to the discovery of the Bronze Age culture of Ban Chiang also led to a complete revision of then-current ideas about the technological sophistication of prehistoric Southeast Asians. Before the 1970s, the prevailing scholarly opinion held that the earliest metal use in Southeast Asia was no older than ca. 500 BC. Southeast Asia was considered rather a technological backwater.