The Late Iron Age of Northeast Thailand and Central-Northwest Cambodia: a tale of two regions

Abstract

Grave goods provide an important source of insight into the material and social cultures of past societies. The presented research examines variability in social complexity across Inland Southeast Asia through the analysis of selected mortuary assemblages at late Iron Age (c. 200 – 600 CE) sites in Central-Northwest Cambodia and Northeast Thailand. Phum Sophy, Phum Lovea, and Prei Khmeng form the Cambodian collection while Non Ban Jak (supplemented with published data from Noen U-Loke and Ban Non Wat) provide the data for Northeast Thailand. Analysis of assemblage sizes, the presence or absence of semi-precious material, and the appearance and abundance of ornamental circlets (bangles, rings, earrings, etc.) are used to generate relative wealth values for each burial assemblage. It is argued that, by the late Iron Age, two distinctly different systems of social complexity separated the regions, with a three-tiered, stratified economy in Cambodia compared to a ranked, unstratified economy in Northeast Thailand. A morphological typology is developed to classify banded circular ornaments, termed circlets, on three levels in order to assess variability in expressions of dress in mortuary populations. The first classification level examines the cross-sectional shape of circlets while the second and third reference the type of band opening and overhead shape respectively. The typology serves as a reference system for recording and analysing the shape and form of circlets and can be applied across Iron Age sites in Cambodia and Thailand. The additional insight gained from examining circlet morphology is used in the assessment of burial wealth, with assemblages featuring a range of designs registering higher than those with few forms. A conclusion is tendered that, while complexity increased during the course of the Iron Age in both regions, the communities in the Northeast Thailand retained the characteristics of a chiefdom in the late prehistory while Central-Northwest Cambodia appears to have developed to the point of a complex polity. Show more