Joyce White, co-Director of the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP), talks about the origins of the project and gives an overview of the test excavations the team has conducted at a series of cave/rockshelter sites in northern Laos since 2007.

Dr. White is interviewed during the 2010 field season at a cave called Tham An Mah near a village called Ban Xieng Mouk just outside of Luang Prabang. The excavation yielded several important Iron Age discoveries that will shed light on MMAP’s research on human prehistory in this under-studied region of the world.

Some MMAP team members at the IPPAs. From left to right: Sengphone Keophanhya, Phousavanh Vorasing, Sureeratana Bubpha, Joyce White, Bounheuang Bouasisengpaseuth, and Souksamone Sonethongkham.

MMAP team members traveled to Hanoi in late November 2009, to present papers at the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (IPPA) conference.

The IPPAs are the most important conference meetings for Southeast Asianist archaeologists in the world, with over 500 participants. These meetings occur only once every three to four years: the 2009 conference was an important place to report on MMAP progress from the previous 3 years of field work and training seasons.

Nine MMAP team members presented papers: MMAP co-directors Joyce White and Bounheuang Bouasisengpaseuth, Lao team members Phousavanh (Phou) Vorasing, Souksamone (Pong) Sonethongkham and Sengphone Keophanhya, Thai team members Korakot (Kot) Boonlop and Sureeratana (Joom) Bubpha, Ben Marwick (University of Washington) and Helen Lewis (University College Dublin).

Highlights of the IPPA Presentations

In 2010, MMAP marks its tenth year of archaeological research in Laos, and the presentations by the co-directors provided broad views of the MMAP project.
Joyce White gave an overview of MMAP: its history, what it had accomplished so far, and its future plans. She reported that – as of July 2009 – the MMAP surveys had documented 69 archaeological sites in the area around Luang Prabang and had excavated three sites with dates ranging from the end of the Ice Age to the historic period.
Bounheuang Bouasisengpaseuth aimed his talk at archaeologists seeking to work in Laos, discussing the requirements of obtaining excavation permits and MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) from the Lao government.

Three Lao team members were first-time presenters of scholarly papers, and they built upon their MMAP training in scholarship and public communication and their knowledge of Lao culture to bring special perspectives to the conference.
Phousavanh (Phou) Vorasing, in a talk that received praise from some senior archaeologists at the conference, reported on the results of his ethno-archaeological investigation of shell remains uncovered in three MMAP excavations. Phou studied the shell species found archaeologically, and conducted interviews in the street markets of Luang Prabang with women who collect and sell snails and other shelled species. By doing this, he was able to get an idea of the relative abundance and collecting season of each species found in the prehistoric sites.
Sengphone Keophanhya, who works at the Palace Museum in Luang Prabang, gave a presentation on MMAP and Lao cultural heritage, concentrating on an evaluation of the MMAP training program for Lao cultural heritage staff that took place in early 2009.
Souksamone (Pong) Sonethongkham utilized his 2009 training in rock type identification and stone tool recording to present findings about variations in stone tool cores found in 3 rock shelter sites excavated by MMAP. Using data from the excavated sites, Joyce White and Pong had discovered that there were real differences among MMAP sites in the kind of stone used for core tools—the first time anyone had ever looked at those kinds of distinctions in Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers.

Other MMAP Papers
Korakot (Kot) Boonlop and Sureeratana (Joom) Bubpha co-authored a paper about MMAP as the first implementation in Southeast Asia of true cross-borders scholarship in the Middle Mekong region.
Helen Lewis discussed scholarly issues having to do with choosing the most promising archaeological sites for excavation, based on various criteria such as the shape of a cave and artifacts found at the surface of the cave.
Ben Marwick of the University of Washington reported results of his geoarchaeological analysis of sediments excavated from Tham Sua, the site which MMAP excavated in July 2009. This analysis revealed imporant information about site formation processes and stratigraphic integrity.
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While humans probably settled in Laos at least 20,000 years ago, centuries of geopolitical instability and remoteness have meant Laos has not been scientifically studied or culturally investigated to the same degree as its larger and more populous neighbours. Biologists consider Laos a biodiversity “hotspot” and regularly announce the discovery of a new plant or animal species. Now archaeologists from the Department of Heritage of the Ministry of Information and Culture and international experts are beginning to believe that Laos may be an important focus of prehistoric human settlement in the Mekong subregion, according to a public talk on Friday given by leaders of the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP).

Dr. Joyce White, from the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and Deputy Director of the Lao National Museum Mr. Bounheuang Bouasisengpaseuth presented recent discoveries at the talk. Dr. White said she believes the Luang Prabang region “could represent the heartland of human settlement in the Mekong region”. Dr. White and Mr. Bounheuang have been collaborating since 2001, mapping and undertaking preliminary surveys first in the Vientiane region and then in Luang Prabang province. This northern province has been particularly rich with nearly 60 sites now identified as having important artefacts with thousands of pottery sherds, stone tools, bones and other signs of human habitation collected for study. The findings are showing that the Mekong has been an ancient highway for peoples, technologies and cultures for at least 6,000 years.

The most significant discovery has been a 2,000 year old example of a secondary burial from the Iron Age in Tham An Cave. Skulls and long bones from three people were found in a mortuary pot which had been reburied after the initial internment. This is the first example of this burial ritual in the region and links it to sites in Vietnam and Thailand. MMAP has been an important collaboration between the Lao National Museum and a range of international experts, who have brought skills and techniques to Laos which did not exist here previously. Experts from the USA, the United Kingdom, and Ireland together with geologists from the Lao Department of Mines have been assisting in the project and training young Lao in the skills they need to undertake the investigations.

Another aspect of the project has been the study of paleoclimatology by Kathleen Johnson from the University of California-Irvine. She is training Lao students how to determine ancient climates through the analysis of patterns in stalagmites found in caves. The work of the project has also been greatly assisted by officials from the Luang Prabang district Office of Information and Culture.

Amy is the Digital Media Developer at the Penn Museum. She accompanyed the MMAP team for the 2010 season in Luang Prabang to document the project on video and on her blog.

Read his Pennsylvania Gazette article, “Trench Fever”

See his YouTube video, “Tham Vang Ta Leow, Laos excavation 2008″

This first field season was supported by grants from the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation.

The purpose of the 2005 MMAP Survey was to explore an area of the left (eastern) bank of the Mekong River in Luang Prabang, Laos, in mainland Southeast Asia. MMAP archaeologists hypothesized that this area would have abundant evidence of prehistoric settlements, including stone age, neolithic, and metal age sites. Very little is known about prehistoric sites in this 1500-square-kilometer area, so the main purpose of this phase of research was to locate and record the places with the best potential for future in-depth exploration and excavation.

Research in the neighboring countries of Vietnam, China, and Thailand has started to fill in some of the archaeological puzzle-pieces of prehistory in Southeast Asia. However, very little modern archaeological research has been done in Laos despite its central geographic location. The lack of research is due to the disruption of World War II, ongoing regional conflicts, and the country’s political isolation after the Vietnam War. The MMAP Survey was therefore also an early opportunity for international teamwork in an untouched area.

The MMAP survey group was a collaboration of U.S., Lao, British, Australian, and Thai colleagues. Two separate teams did rapid surveys of three tributaries of the Mekong River in Luang Prabang province over a one-month period. The MMAP teams were especially interested in finding likely sites from the Middle Holocene period (roughly 6000-2000 BC). This period saw a transition from communities based on game hunting and wild-plant gathering to settlements practicing plant cultivation.

The MMAP Survey returned with a rich variety of data. Using mobile GIS (Geographic Information System) technology, along with digital photography, MMAP was able to evaluate data from many sites, and to do it more efficiently than would have been possible with more traditional recording methods.

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