New Evidence For Early Trade In The South China Sea Region

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A SIAM SOCIETY LECTURE

New evidence for early trade in the South China Sea region

by Ian Glover

Following excavations at Ban Don Ta Phet, Kanchanaburi Province, over 20 years ago I argued that regular contacts between Southeast Asia and the early historic cultures of India had started by at least the 4th century BCE – many hundreds of years before the establishment of Indic-influenced cultures with Hindu-Buddhist temples, inscriptions and royal rituals. Recent joint French-Thai excavations at Khao Sam Kaeo (Chumphon) Province support this and also link the Indian Ocean trade networks with those of the South China Sea; specifically with Viet Nam, southern China and the Philippines.

More recently still studies of the trade in jade (nephrite) ornaments by Hsiao-chun Hung and her colleagues have shown that many earrings and pendants of what we regard as typical of the Sa Huynh Culture of coastal Vietnam were made from a distinctive form of nephrite mined at Fengtian in eastern Taiwan and these have been found in sites in Vietnam, eastern Malaysia and Thailand. Raw material from Fengtian has also been found in Peninsular Thailand.

Another project led by Vietnamese, Japanese and Australian archaeologists has recognised striking similarities in the pottery from Kalanay in the Central Philippines, Hoa Diem in coastal Vietnam and Ko Samui in Peninsular Thailand. Taken together this new research shows that trade networks and population movements in the greater South China Sea region were well developed in the late centuries BCE and, through Thailand, were linked with those of the Indian Ocean.

Dr. Ian Glover is Emeritus Reader in Southeast Asia Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He has undertaken excavations in East Timor, Sulawesi, western Thailand and central Vietnam on periods ranging from Late Pleistocene cave deposits, Iron Age cemeteries and the emerging Cham Civilization of Central Vietnam. His academic interests include early technologies of bronze, iron and glass and the effects of inter-regional trade on cultural evolution.

DATE: 11 December 2008 (Thursday)

TIME: 7.30 p.m.

PLACE: The Siam Society, 131 Asoke Rd, Sukhumvit 21

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Interesting, thanks.