Ban Chiang
Ban Chiang is an archaeological site in Nong Han District, Udon Thani Province, in northeastern Thailand.[1] It is a large mound of earth where people l…
Ban Chiang is an archaeological site in Nong Han District, Udon Thani Province, in northeastern Thailand.[1] It is a large mound of earth where people lived and were buried in prehistoric times.[1] The site was found in 1966, and it first became known for its fine red pottery.[2] In 1992, UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site.[2]
The mound
The mound is shaped like an oval. It measures 500 meters by 1,350 meters, and it is 8 meters high. It is in a farming area, in the area drained by the Mekong River.[1] People still live on the mound, and they still grow rice around it.[1] Only a small part of the site has been dug up. By 2012, about 0.09 percent of it had been excavated.[1]
Excavations
The University Museum in Philadelphia and the Thai Fine Arts Department dug at the site together. In the 1970s, they opened two excavation pits that covered 130.8 square meters in total.[2] One of the two lead archaeologists, Chester Gorman, died in 1981. After that, Joyce White took charge of the project's records and finds.[2]
What was found
The digs showed layers where people lived, worked, and were buried for about two thousand years.[1] The people were some of the first farmers in Southeast Asia. There is evidence for wet rice farming and for farm animals, such as cattle, pigs, and chickens.[1] The villagers made many kinds of pottery, both for daily use and for graves. They also made bronze tools and jewelry, and later they made iron objects.[1] Many graves hold pots and metal objects.[1] Bangles, which are rings worn on the arm, are the most common metal grave goods.[2]
Experts find Ban Chiang interesting because it is in a remote place, and there is little sign of a ruling class. This makes them question old ideas about how new technology and society changed together.[2]
How old is Ban Chiang?
Experts have argued about the age of Ban Chiang for many years. At first, a test called thermoluminescence gave dates between 4420 and 3400 BC for the pottery. This made people think that Ban Chiang had the oldest bronze objects in the world.[2] Tests with radiocarbon later gave younger dates.[2]
In 1986, Joyce White said that the earliest graves are from about 2100 BC and the latest from about AD 200. She said that people began to work metal around 2000 BC.[2] Another scholar, Charles Higham, thinks that bronze was clearly in use only from about 1000 BC, and iron from the fifth century BC.[2] The two scholars do not agree on which materials give the best dates. These materials are bone, shell, and the rice husks that were mixed into the clay of pottery.[2] UNESCO says that the site dates from about 1495 BC.[1]
World Heritage Site
UNESCO says that Ban Chiang is the most important prehistoric settlement found so far in Southeast Asia.[1] It chose the site under criterion (iii). This means that Ban Chiang was the center of a remarkable development in human culture, society, and technology. This development began around 1500 BC and spread widely over the region.[1]
UNESCO says that climate change in the middle of the 1st millennium AD may have led to people leaving the site for a time. This may have sealed the old layers under the ground. In the late 18th century, farmers who moved across the Mekong River began to live there again.[1] The site is protected by Thai law and looked after by the Fine Arts Department. The dig site is covered by a shelter, and there is a site museum nearby.[1]
Return of objects
In November 2024, the United States returned four objects to Thailand: a clay pot, a bracelet, and two cylinder-shaped rollers. They came from Ban Chiang and other sites in central Thailand.[3] The Thai government had given them as a gift to an American soldier in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and they were kept at the US Embassy.[3] The objects were handed over at a ceremony in the Bangkok National Museum on 14 November 2024.[3]
Related pages
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 "Ban Chiang Archaeological Site". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. UNESCO. Retrieved 2026-11-01.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Hein, Anke (2021-10). "Review of Ban Chiang, Northeast Thailand, Volumes 2A, 2B, and 2C" (PDF). Current Anthropology. 62 (5): 657–667. Retrieved 2026-11-01.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "U.S. Returns Ancient Ban Chiang Artifacts to Thailand in the Right Time". Khaosod English. 2024-11-16. Retrieved 2026-11-01.
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