Léonard Aurousseau's hypothesis revisited: the intersection between history and archaeology

Abstract

This paper uses cloth production tools and extant remains to reconstruct the movement of prehistoric groups with textile technology into the Red River valley of Vietnam during the protohistoric period. The principal argument is that there was more than one wave of migration into Vietnam. This research shows that spinning technology developed independently in the Yangzi valley of southern China during the Neolithic period and gradually spread during the Bronze Age from the southeast region into the Red River region and other parts of Southeast Asia (including insular Southeast Asia); a second migration, evidenced at Dong Xa, is linked to the later movement of Han Chinese into the south.