Collected by Nguyễn Thiên Thụ
9. A Brief History of Bronze Casting
Any attempt to describe here how bronze has been used through the ages around the world to cast utensils, ornaments, figurines and statues can only be very brief. Only a few items have been selected to show the impressive use that various cultures have made of this metal over the past 5,000 years. Even then, the prior use of native copper extends this period back another 5,000 years and is discussed separately. The transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age happened at different times in different places and is made all the more difficult to determine, because sometimes the native copper used already contained other elements like arsenic. Also early records from the Greeks and Romans do not distinguish between copper and bronze, e.g. in Latin, the word aes can be used for either metal, although they did have specific terms for the ores depending on their qualities. It is hoped that the few items shown will whet the appetite of anyone interested in this material.
A cast bronze figurine from Mohenjo-Daro, in what is now the Sindh province of Pakistan, dates back at least as far as 2500 BCE. Bronzes are usually cast hollow and the most commonly used method is known as the cire-perdu or lost-wax process. Sumer in West Asia was also using this process in the 3rd millennium BCE.
A cast bronze figurine from Mohenjo-Daro, in what is now the Sindh province of Pakistan, dates back at least as far as 2500 BCE. Bronzes are usually cast hollow and the most commonly used method is known as the cire-perdu or lost-wax process. Sumer in West Asia was also using this process in the 3rd millennium BCE.
Replica of Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, India.Photograph attributed to the author, Joe Ravi,
Used under Creative Commons Share Alike license CC-BY-SA 3.0.
The lost-wax process was in use in the Aegean and other areas around the Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium BCE. Also in Northern Europe, various cultures had developed copper and bronze casting for tools and weapons and, although examples are much rarer, items have been found that show that the lost wax process was used there too for other items. One example is the Solvognen or Chariot of the Sun, found in Trundholm Denmark. This has been dated by the National Museum to between 1800 BCE and 1600 BCE. It is thought to represent the movement of the sun across the heavens and would have been used in religious rituals. It is interesting to note that the Indian Rigveda also tells of a horse-drawn chariot taking Surya, the Hindu solar deity, across the sky.
Attributed to the National Museum Copenhagen, Denmark.
In China another method known as piece-mould casting was in use in the Shang period before 1100 BCE and the lost-wax process was in use by about 550 BCE. Perhaps the earliest bronze statue of a man from was unearthed at Sanxingdui in Guanghan, Sichuan Province and dates to about 1200 BCE. The statue, 262 centimetres tall, is the tallest of its kind found so far in China.
Artefacts from the Đông Sơn culture in Vietnam and the Ban Chiang and other sites in Thailand have shown that bronze casting was carried out at least as early as the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. These cultures spread to and influenced other parts of South-east Asia, including the Indonesian archipelago from about 1000 BCE to 1 BCE.
Bronze Figurine, Dong Son Culture, 500 BCE
East Asian Art Museum, Berlin.
This photograph is attributed to the author, PHGCOM.
Used under Creative Commons Share Alike License.
After the start of the Iron Age, the use of bronze decreased for making weapons and tools, but its use for making certain utensils, ceremonial and religious items such as statues and containers continued and increased. This was especially true in Ancient Greece, India and China. The earliest extant archaic statue from Greece goes back to about 600 BCE and there are many examples after 500 BCE.
The Charioteer of Delphi, 570 BCE, Delphi Museum.
Photograph attributed to Lourdes Cardenal
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Photograph attributed to Lourdes Cardenal
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Leaving the 1st millennium BCE, over the next millennium the casting of bronzes continued in all regions. It is pertinent to pay attention to those produced in India, especially those made as Hindu and Buddhist religious images. The Sanskrit Shilpa Shastra texts mention the lost-wax process and call it the Madhucchishta Vidhana. The Chola dynasty from the mid-9th to the mid-13th century is renowned for the casting of bronze statues and produced some of India’s greatest bronzes, with the pinnacle reached during the first 120 years of this period, Chola period bronzes were created using the lost wax technique. The culture spread out through South-east Asia including Indonesia and had a lot of influence in the art of these regions.
Shiva Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance, Chola Dynasty 950-1000
Released to the public domain by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Perhaps the most famous bronze is the Tōdai-ji Daibutsu, a statue of the Vairocana Buddha, located in the city of Nara, Japan. The 15 metre high statue was made from eight castings over three years, the head and neck being cast separately. The casting of the statue was started in Shigaraki in 742, completed in Nara in 745 and finally finished in 751 weighing 500 tonnes.
Vairocana Buddha Statue at Todai-ji in Nara Japan.
Photograph released by Wikimedia Commons to the public domain.
While you
contemplate this Great Vairocana Buddha statue, if you wish to listen
to a Sanskrit mantra dedicated to this Buddha chanted with music and
bells, please start the player below.
Site last updated 2014-02-08 @ 11:42; this page last updated 2014-01-26 @ 23:07.
10. Vietnam History
The history of Vietnam is one of
the longest continuous histories in the world, with archaeological
findings showing human settlements as far back as around half a million
years ago and a cultural history of over 20,000 years. Ancient Vietnam
was home to some of the world's earliest civilizations and societies -
making them one of the world's first people who practiced agriculture.
The Red River valley formed a natural geographic and economic unit,
bounded to the north and west by mountains and jungles, to the east by
the sea and to the south by the Red River Delta. The need to have a
single authority to prevent floods of the Red River, to cooperate in
constructing hydraulic systems, trade exchange, and to fight invaders,
led to the creation of the first Vietnamese.
The first truly influential part of
history in Vietnam occurred during the Bronze Age, when the Đông Sơn
culture dramatically advanced the civilization. Vietnam's peculiar
geography made it a difficult country to attack, which is why Vietnam
under Hùng Vương was for so long an independent and self-contained
state. The Âns and Qins were among the earliest foreign aggressors of
Vietnam, but the ancient Vietnamese managed to regain control of the
country soon after the invasions.
Once Vietnam did succumb to foreign
rule, however, it proved unable to escape from it, and for 1,100 years,
Vietnam had been successively governed by a series of Chinese dynasties:
the Han, Eastern Han, Eastern Wu, Cao Wei, Jin, Liu Song, Southern Qi,
Liang, Sui, Tang, and Southern Han; leading to the losses of its writing
system, language, and much of national identity. At certain periods
during these 1,100 years, Vietnam was independently governed under the
Triệus, Trưng Sisters, Anterior Lýs, Khúcs and Dương Đình Nghệ -
although their triumphs and reigns were brief.
During the foreign domination of North
Vietnam, several Indianized civilizations flourished in the central and
south of what we know as Vietnam, particularly the Funanese and Cham.
The founders and rulers of these governments, however, were not native
to Vietnam. From the 10th century onwards, the Vietnamese, emerging in
their heartland of the Red River Delta, began to conquer these
civilizations.
When Ngô Quyền (King of Vietnam- 939–944) restoring sovereign power
in the country, the next millennium Vietnam advanced by the
accomplishments of a series of dynasties: Ngôs, Đinhs, Prior Lês, Lýs,
Trầns, Hồs, Posterior Trầns, Later Lês, Mạcs, Trịnhs, Nguyễns, Tây Sơn
and again Nguyễns. At various points during these 1,000 years of
imperial dynasties, Vietnam was ravaged and divided by civil wars and
repeatedly attacked by the Songs, Mongol Yuans, Chams, Mings, Dutch,
Manchus, French, and the Americans.
The Ming Empire conquered the Red River
valley for a while before native Vietnamese regained control and the
French Empire reduced Vietnam to a French dependency for nearly a
century, followed by an occupation by the Japanese Empire. French rule
lasted until WWII, when the country was invaded by Japan. At the war's
end the predominantly Communist Viet Minh, which had led the resistance
movement against the Japanese, declared the country's independence.
The French Indochina War ensued, until
France admitted defeat in 1954, and the Geneva Accords left Vietnam
divided into a Communist north and an anti- Communist south. By this
time the U.S. had replaced the French as the primary sponsor of the
anti- Communist government. Tension between north and south mounted over
the next few years, until in 1964 full scale war erupted. The conflict
lasted for the next eight years, and involved hundreds of thousands of
troops from the U.S. and other countries.
In 1973 a cease-fire agreement allowed
the U.S. the opportunity to withdraw its troops, and in 1975 the
southern capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. An extended
period of political repression followed, prompting massive emigration
from the country. In 1991, with the fall of Communism and the end of the
Cold War, many western powers re-established diplomatic and trade
relations with Vietnam. The last country to do so, in 1995, was the U.S.
http://www.livetravelvietnam.com/home/history.html
11. ĐÔNG SƠN CULTURE
Dong Son culture, important prehistoric culture of Indochina; it is named for a village in northern Vietnam where many of its remains have been found. The Dong Son site shows that bronze culture was introduced into Indochina from the north, probably about 300 bc,
the date of the earliest Dong Son remains. Dong Son was not solely a
bronze culture; its people also had iron implements and Chinese cultural
artifacts. Nevertheless, their bronze work, especially the production
of ritual bronze kettle drums, was of a high order. The Dong Son people
also are distinguished by their great stone monuments, built for
religious functions, which are similar to monuments found in Polynesia.
The Dong Son were a seafaring people who apparently traveled and traded throughout Southeast Asia. They also cultivated rice
and are credited with originating the process of changing the Red River
delta area into a great rice-growing region. The Dong Son culture,
transformed by further Chinese and then Indian influence, became the
basis of the general civilization of the region. Remnants of the culture
have been found dating from as late as the 16th century, though most of
it disappeared after the region was conquered by China in the 2nd
century bc.
12. Đong Son Culture
Beginning in the middle of the first millennium b.c.,
Southeast Asia, including the southern fringes of China, came under the
influence of a distinctive metal-using tradition called Dong Son.
The
discovery of the protohistoric Dong Son culture was the first exposure
to Europeans of a complex Bronze Age stratified society in mainland
Southeast Asia. At the site of Dong Son, on the south bank of the Ma
River near Thanh Hoa in northern Viet Nam, excavations conducted by
Pajot and, later, by Janse revealed a rich cemetery complex containing
objects of bronze, iron, pottery, imported semiprecious stones, and
artifacts of Chinese origin (Janse, 1958). Subsequent excavations at
Vietnamese sites such as Viet Khe, Lang Ca, and Lang Vac (Bellwood 1985,
Tan 1980), indicate that although the type site was peripheral to the
focus of Dong Son activities in the Red River delta (Higham, 1989), it
is nonetheless typical of this aspect of mainland Southeast Asian Bronze
Age culture in that it provides dramatic evidence of the socially
stratified, semiurban nature of the culture as a whole.
Initially,
the Dong Son was regarded as a distinctive Bronze Age culture
principally on the basis of archaeological materials derived from burial
contexts at the type site and similar localities along the eastern
margin of the Southeast Asian peninsula. Subsequent excavations of
habitation sites such as Co Loa in the floodplain of the Red River, near
Hanoi, as well as the recovery of Dong Son-style bronzes over a much
wider region of Southeast Asia, including the Indo-Malaysian
archipelago, have forced a reevaluation of the nature of Dong Son
culture and its geographical and temporal parameters. The bulk of recent
research indicates a local Vietnamese origin for the Dong Son culture.
Archaeologists are able to delineate a clear development trajectory
between roughly 1000 B.C. and 1 B.C. in which stylistic elements of
local Neolithic origin are gradually incorporated within the products of
the Dong Son bronze-casters.
The Dong Son is best known for its
bronze wares, including so-called drums (which often functioned also as
cowrieshell containers), large bucket-shaped vessels termed situlae,
daggers, swords, and socketed axes. The scale of the metal industry
indicated by these finds is an indirect measure of the complexity of
Dong Son society (the bronze drum from Co Loa, for example, weighs 159
pounds (72 kg) and would have required the smelting of between 1 and 7
tons of copper ore).
Toward the end of the Dong Son sequence, during the last two centuries b.c.,
Chinese culture, as an exponent of the expansionist Han empire, began
to exert greater and greater influence on Dong Son civilization. This
influence is detectable in the form of bronze mirrors, coins, seals,
halberds, and other small artifacts that regularly occur in later Don
Son sites. It is also likely that it was the Chinese who introduced iron
technology into the Don Son metallurgical repertoire.
Historical documents record that in a.d.
43 the Dong Son homeland in Southeast Asia finally succumbed to Chinese
invasions from the north and the entire region was incorporated within
the territory of the Han dynasty.
The extent to which superficially similar metal-using traditions in adjacent regions such as Thailand (e.g., the Ban Chiang
complex) and south China (e.g., the Dian civilization) should be
considered an integral part of the Dong Son tradition remains to be
adequately explored. [See also Asia: Prehistory and Early History of Southeast Asia; China: Han Empire; Southeast Asia, Kingdoms and Empires Of.]
Bibliography
J. M. Janse, Archaeological Research in Indo-China. Volume III, The Ancient Dwelling Site of Dong-S' on (Thanh-Hoa, Annam) (1958).Find This Resource
Peter Bellwood, Man's Conquest of the Pacific (1979).Find This Resource
Ha Van Tan, Nouvelles Recherches Prehistoriques et Protohistoriques au Vietnam, Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient 68 (1980):113–54. Peter Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (1985).Find This Resource
Charles Higham, The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia (1989).Find This Resource
13. A Brief History of the Recreation Use Values Database
The
first published review of the recreation use values economic literature
was conducted by Sorg and Loomis (1984). Their review covered outdoor
recreation and forest amenity use value estimation from the mid-1960s to
1982. The second review, conducted by Walsh, Johnson and McKean (1988)
[see also Walsh, Johnson and McKean 1989, 1992] covered outdoor
recreation use valuation studies from 1968 to 1988, building on the
first review, but focusing primarily on the 1983 to 1988 literature.
Concurrently, Smith (1988) [see also Smith and Kaoru 1989] was
conducting a review of the literature focusing on travel cost model
estimates of recreation benefits. A third literature review was conducted by MacNair (1993) and covered the period 1968 to 1993. This review formally coded information on attributes of the studies. A fourth review of this literature was conducted by Loomis, Rosenberger and Shrestha (1999) [see also Rosenberger and Loomis 2000a, 2000b, 2001; Shrestha and Loomis 2001, 2003] using an expanded coding protocol worksheet and focusing most intently on the period 1988 to 1998, excluding sport fishing studies. The MacNair database was then merged with this fourth iteration of the database. Concurrently with this fourth literature review was a review of sport fishing studies using a similar coding protocol worksheet (Boyle et al., 1998). A fifth review of the literature was conducted by Kaval and Loomis (2003) [see also Loomis 2005], updating the previous version of the database to 2003 and focusing on under-represented recreation activities.
The current effort is the sixth review of this literature. All past documents have been re-coded using a standardized and expanded coding protocol worksheet. The expanded protocol worksheet includes recording estimated price coefficients, their standard errors and price elasticity estimates. Additional documents were added including eligible sport fishing documents, previously overlooked documents, and documents released between 2003 and 2006. This latest version is the most comprehensive and consistently coded database of recreation use values for the US and Canada to date.
References
Boyle, K., R. Bishop, J. Caudill, J. Charbonneau, D. Larson, M. Markowski, R. Unsworth and R. Paterson. 1998. A database of sport fishing values. Prepared for Economics Division, US Fish and Wildlife Service. Cambridge, MA: Industrial Economics, Inc. http://www.indecon.com/fish/Sprtfish.pdf
Kaval, P. and J. Loomis. 2003. Updated outdoor recreation use values with emphasis on National Park recreation. Final Report, Cooperative Agreement 1200-99-009, Project number IMDE-02-0070. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/departments/staff/pkaval/Kaval&LoomisNPSReport10-03.pdf
Loomis, J. 2005. Updated outdoor recreation use values on national forests and other public lands. General Technical Report PNW-GTR-658. Portland, OR: USDA, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr658.pdf
MacNair, D. 1993. 1993 RPA recreation values database. Contract 43-4568-3-1191. Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, RPA Program.
Rosenberger, R.S. and J.B. Loomis. 2000a. Using meta-analysis for benefit transfer: In-sample convergent validity tests of an outdoor recreation database. Water Resources Research 36(4):1097-1107. http://www.agu.org/journals/wr/wr0004/2000WR900006/pdf/2000WR900006.pdf
Rosenberger, R.S. and J.B. Loomis. 2000b. Panel stratification in meta-analysis of environmental and natural resource economic studies. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 32(3):459-470.
Rosenberger, R.S. and J.B. Loomis. 2001. Benefit transfer of outdoor recreation use studies: A technical document supporting the Forest Service Strategic Plan (2000 revision). General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-72. Fort Collins, CO: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_gtr72.pdf
Shrestha, R.K. and J.B. Loomis. 2001. Testing a meta-analysis model for benefit transfer in international outdoor recreation. Ecological Economics 39(1):67-83. http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/503305/description#description
Shrestha, R.K. and J.B. Loomis. 2003. Meta-analytic benefit transfer of outdoor recreation economic values: Testing out-of-sample convergent validity. Environmental and Resource Economics 25(1):79-100. http://www.springerlink.com/content/g806706533767p52/fulltext.pdf
Smith, V.K. 1988. Recreational benefits transfer project. EPA Cooperative Agreement Project #CR813564. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State University, Department of Economics and Business.
Smith, V.K. and Y. Kaoru. 1990. Signals or noise? Explaining the variation in recreation benefit estimates. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 72(2):419-433.
Sorg, C.F. and J.B Loomis. 1984. Empirical estimates of amenity forest values: A comparative review. General Technical Report RM-107. Fort Collins, CO: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station.
Walsh, R.G., D.M. Johnson and J.R. McKean. 1988. Review of outdoor recreation economic demand studies with nonmarket benefit estimates, 1968-1988. Technical Report No. 54. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Walsh, R.G., D.M. Johnson and J.R. McKean. 1989. Issues in nonmarket valuation and policy application: A retrospective glance. Western Journal of Agricultural Economics 14(1):178-188.
Walsh, R.G., D.M. Johnson and J.R. McKean. 1992. Benefit transfer of outdoor recreation demand studies: 1968-1988. Water Resources Research 28(3):707-713. http://www.agu.org/journals/wr/wr9203/91WR02597/91WR02597.pdf
http://recvaluation.forestry.oregonstate.edu/brief-history
14. Hoabinhian |
||
Prehistoric cultures of Vietnam  |
|---|
| Paleolithic Age |
| Sơn Vi Culture (20,000-12,000 BC) |
| Mesolithic Age |
| Hòa Bình Culture (12,000-10,000 BC) |
| Neolithic Age |
| Bắc Sơn Culture (10,000-8,000 BC) |
| Quỳnh Văn Culture (8,000-6,000 BC) |
| Đa Bút Culture (6,000-5,000 BC) |
| Bronze Age |
| Phùng Nguyên Culture (5,000-4,000 BC) |
| Đồng Đậu Culture (4,000-2,500 BC) |
| Gò Mun Culture (2,500-2,000 BC) |
| Iron Age |
| Đông Sơn Culture (2,000 BC-200 AD) |
| Sa Huỳnh Culture (1,000 BC-200 AD) |
| Óc Eo Culture (1-630 AD) |
Contents |
History of definitions
In 1927 Colani published some details of her nine excavations on northern Vietnamese province of Hòa Bình. As a result of her work the First Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East in 1932 agreed to define the Hoabinhian as- a culture composed of implements that are in general flaked with somewhat varied types of primitive workmanship. It is characterised by tools often worked only on one face, by hammerstones, by implements of sub-triangular section, by discs, short axes and almond shaped artefacts, with an appreciable number of bone tools (Matthews 1966).
- A generally unifacial flaked tool tradition made primarily on water rounded pebbles and large flakes detached from these pebbles
- Core tools ("Sumatraliths") made by complete flaking on one side of a pebble and grinding stones also made on rounded pebbles, usually in association with iron oxide
- A high incidence of utilized flakes (identified from edge-damage characteristics)
- Fairly similar assemblages of food remains including remains of extant shellfish, fish, and small-medium-sized mammals
- A cultural and ecological orientation to the use of rockshelters generally occurring near fresh water streams in an upland karstic topography (though Hoabinhian shell middens do indicate at least one other ecological orientation)
- Edge-grinding and cord-marked ceramics occurring (though perhaps as intrusive elements), individually or together, in the upper layers of Hoabinhian deposits
- The concept of the Hoabinhian should be kept
- The best concept for "Hoabinhian" was an industry rather than a culture or techno-complex
- The chronology of the Hoabinhian industry dates is from "late-to-terminal Pleistocene to early-to-mid Holocene"
- The term "Sumatralith" should be retained
- The Hoabinhian Industry should be referred to as a "cobble" rather that a "pebble" tool industry
- The Hoabinhian should not be referred to as a "Mesolithic" phenomenon
Geographical distribution
Since the term was first used to describe assemblages from sites in Vietnam, many sites throughout mainland and island Southeast Asia have also been described as having Hoabinhian components. The apparent concentration of more than 120 Hoabinhian sites in Vietnam reflects intense research activities in this area rather the location of a centre of the prehistoric Hoabinhian activity. Archaeological sites in Sumatra, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia have been identified as Hoabinhian, although the quality and quantity of descriptions vary and the relative significance of the Hoabinhian component at these sites can be difficult to determine. Beyond this core area some archaeologists argue that there are isolated inventories of stone artifacts displaying Hoabinhian elements in Nepal, South China, Taiwan and Australia (Moser 2001).The Hoabinhian and plant domestication
Gorman (1971) claimed that Spirit Cave included remains of Prunus (almond), Terminalia, Areca (betel), Vicia (broadbean) or Phaseolus, Pisum (pea) or Raphia Lagenaria (bottle gourd), Trapa (Chinese water chestnut), Piper (pepper), Madhuca (butternut), Canarium, Aleurites (candle nut), and Cucumis (a cucumber type) in layers dating to c. 9800-8500 BP. None of the recovered specimens differed from their wild phenotypes. He suggested that these may have been used as foods, condiments, stimulants, for lighting and that the leguminous plants in particular 'point to a very early use of domesticated plants' (Gorman 1969:672). He later wrote (1971:311) that 'Whether they are definitely early cultigens (see Yen n.d.:12) remains to be established... What is important, and what we can say definitely, is that the remains indicate the early, quite sophisticated use of particular species which are still culturally important in Southeast Asia.' In 1972 W.G. Solheim, as the director of the project of which Spirit Cave was part, published an article in Scientific American discussing the finds from Spirit Cave. While Solheim noted that the specimens may 'merely be wild species gathered from the surrounding countryside', he claimed that the inhabitants at Spirit Cave had 'an advanced knowledge of horticulture'. Solheim's chronological chart suggests that 'incipient agriculture' began at about 20,000 B.C. in southeast Asia. He also suggests that ceramic technology was invented at 13,000 B.C. although Spirit Cave does not have ceramics until after 6800 B.C. Although Solheim concludes that his reconstruction is 'largely hypothetical', his overstatement of the results of Gorman's excavation has led to inflated claims of Hoabinhian agriculture. These claims have detracted from the significance of Spirit Cave as a site with well-preserved evidence of human subsistence and palaeoenvironmental conditions during the Hoabinhian.References
- ^ Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). "Hoabinhian". Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Springer. p. 238. ISBN 0306461587. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
- ^ Bellwood, Peter (2007). Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. ANU E Press. pp. 161–167. ISBN 1921313129. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
- ^ Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). "Bacsonian". Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. Springer. p. 50. ISBN 0306461587. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
Literature
- Colani M. (1927) L'âge de la pierre dans la province de Hoa Binh. Mémoires du Service Géologique de l'Indochine 13
- Flannery, KV. (1973) The origins of agriculture. Annual Review of Anthropology 2: 271-310
- Gorman C. (1969) Hoabinhian: A pebble tool complex with early plant associations in Southeast Asia. Science 163: 671-3
- Gorman C. (1970) Excavations at Spirit Cave, North Thailand: Some interim interpretations. Asian Perspectives 13: 79-107
- Gorman C. (1971) The Hoabinhian and After: Subsistence Patterns in Southeast Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Recent Periods. World Archaeology 2: 300-20
- Matthews JM. (1964) The Hoabinhian in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. PhD thesis. Australian National University, Canberra
- Matthews JM. (1966) A Review of the 'Hoabinhian' in Indo-China. Asian Perspectives 9: 86-95
- Moser, J. (2001) Hoabinhian: Geographie und Chronologie eines steinzeitlichen Technocomplexes in Südostasien Köln, Lindensoft.
- Phukhachon S. (1988) Archaeological research of the Hoabinhian culture or technocomplex and its comparison with ethnoarchaeology of the Phi Tong Luang, a hunter-gatherer group of Thailand. Tübingen: Verlag Archaeologica Venatoria: Institut fur Urgeschichte der Universitat Tübingen.
- Shoocongdej R. (2000) Forager Mobility Organization in Seasonal Tropical Environments of Western Thailand. World Archaeology 32: 14-40.
- Solheim, W.G. (1972) An earlier agricultural revolution. Scientific American 226: 34-41
- Van Tan H. (1994) The Hoabinhian in Southeast Asia: Culture, cultures or technocomplex? Vietnam Social Sciences 5: 3-8
- Van Tan H. (1997) The Hoabinhian and before. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (Chiang Mai Papers, Volume 3) 16: 35-41
- White JC, Gorman C. (2004) Patterns in "amorphous" industries: The Hoabinhian viewed through a lithic reduction sequence. IN Paz, V. (ed) Southeast Asian archaeology: Wilhelm G. Solheim II Festschrift University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City. pp. 411-4
15. Dong Son Bronze Jar 2500-2000 years old
I. I INTRODUCTION TO THE DONG SON PERIOD OF VIETNAMESE HISTORY (400 BC to 100 AD)
The Dong Son period is named for the site in northern Vietnam at which
artifacts from this period were first uncovered. Although bronze-making
technology was known in Viet Nam from about 1000 BC, it was done on a
more sporadic basis, outside of the context of a large organized
culture. It was not until the Dong Son Period that a culture that could
truly be labeled as “Bronze Age” emerged.
The bronze-making period was preceded by a number of Neolithic cultures
in a number of areas of Vietnam.
The period was terminated by, and is followed by, the Han-Viet period
(also called The Period of Chinese dominance and similar phrases). This
latter period began with the conquest of much of what is now Vietnam
by the Han Chinese armies. The Han period lasted almost a millennium,
from around 100 AD to around 1000 AD (from approximately 2000 years ago
to about 1000 years ago.
During the Han-Viet Period, much of the material culture of Viet Nam
was altered. Chinese shapes replaced indigenous Dong Son shapes in the
areas of bronze casting and ceramics, among others. In some cases, the
Han Viet objects are difficult to differentiate from those of China itself during the Han period.
It should be noted that although the Han Dynasty ended around 200 AD in China,
the term Han-Viet lasted much longer. This is because the word Han in
Han-Viet refers to the Han people (the past and current word for the
majority ethnicity in China, rather than the relatively short-lived dynasty of the same name (around 400 years.)
II. VIETNAMESE BRONZE-CASTING TECHNIQUES OF THE DONG SON PERIOD (400 BC TO 100 AD)
The
Dong Son civilization is considered the founding society of the
Vietnamese people (or at least of the Kinh majority, which is over 85%
of the population.) The art of bronze casting is
believed to have begun about 3000 years ago and therefore perhaps 500
years before the start of the Dong Son era. It
was a Bronze-Age society that began between 500 BC and ended in the
first century AD. The end came because of the conquest of much of what
is now northern Viet Nam by the Han Chinese armies. The Chinese ruled
much of Viet Nam until approximately the year 1000 CE, which some
interruptions along the way.
The Dong Son civilization cast bronze primarily by two methods:
“lost-wax” method and “puddle casting.” The first is much more common
than second.
- THE LOST-WAX METHOD OF BRONZE CASTING
The Dong Son craftsmen did wonderful things with bronze. Most of what
they created was produced by the “lost-wax method.” In this method, an
original piece (sculpture, jewelry, bowl, weapon blade, etc.) was
hand-made of paraffin or other wax. Additional
wax tubes were added, which serve as exits for the wax and entrances
for the bronze. The entire product was covered with clay, in layers of
progressively thicker consistency. The only parts that protruded from
the clay mass were the wax tubes. It looked much like a potato with a
few candles sticking out. When heat was applied,
the protruding wax rods melted first. As it melted, the remaining wax
flowed out through the channels left in the clay by the melted tubes.
The piece was then repositioned and molten bronze was poured into the
channels. Ideally, the bronze then flowed into all the negative space
that had once been occupied by the wax. At the same time, the air that
had been in those spaces was forced out. For this to occur, the
number and placement of the tubes was critical. If some air became
trapped in small spaces (usually at the ends of narrow segments, such as
a hand or finger), the bronze would not be able to enter that space.
The final product, then, would “have no hand” (or whatever). After
the bronze had hardened, the clay was then cracked and removed, leaving
a bronze replica of the original wax piece, including the tubes. The
next step was to remove the tubes, remove extra bits of bronze and
polish the surface of the piece (this last is called chasing).
b. THE PUDDLE-CASTING METHOD OF MAKING BRONZE OBJECTS
In
this technique, no wax original is made. Rather, the first step is the
creation of a mold, but one with only one side. In general, this was a
carving into sand or wet clay, laid flat on the ground. The clay was
dried and hardened, and it then was ready for use. Molten bronze was then poured in. The
downward part of the bronze took on the shape of the mold, but the
other part was flat, formed by the force of gravity. The resulting piece
was shaped and rounded only on one surface. The upper surface was flat,
as a function of gravity.
The
most commonly found object that was cast by this method was the hair
comb that was made to accompany Dong Son women to the world beyond. The
form is always that of a woman with upraised arms, praying under an
arbor. The arbor has perched on it a small number of birds or small
animals. They are most often found in tombs, either above the head or in
containers. To make a stronger and more
pleasing piece, two “mirror image” pieces could be joined, flat back to
flat back. This would yield a more esthetic, more usable, and more
durable product. Hairpins made in this way are sometimes found, but
rarely. Now, most of the copper in the original piece has been turned
to copper sulfate, so that the pins are very fragile. However,
when the original bronze was still unchanged, these may have had some
substantial strength. Although it seems unlikely that such fragile
pieces would be used for day-to-day wear, they may, in fact, have been
worn on special days.
c. THE MULTI-PART MOLD METHOD OF BRONZE CASTING
The
more sophisticated method of casting with a multi-part mold was not
used frequently by the Dong Son people until late in their reign. In
this method, a mold was made in a similar fashion. However, instead of
it being made in a single piece, it was cut into multiple pieces. This
was done in such a way that after casting each piece, the mold parts
could be separated easily without being damaged. Thus, they could again
be joined together to make a second (or hundredth) original. This marked
the arrival of mass –production to bronze casting.
c. POSTSCRIPT:
The Iron Age follows the Bronze Age in every continent of the world.
The reason for this is simple- melting point. Copper can be extracted
from its ore with an open fire, although the temperatures reached are
relatively low. Iron,
on the other hand, cannot be removed from its ore without a much hotter
flame. This temperature can only be achieved with the aid of a bellows.
The additional oxygen supplied by the bellows can create that higher
temperature. This leap forward in metal
technology was achieved by Dong Son blacksmiths. Although iron can take a
sharper edge and maintain it longer, it is inferior to bronze in most
other ways. The Dong Son craftsmen knew this, and they created
implements that utilized the best qualities of both—swords with iron
blades but bronze handles and hilts. When found
today, they exhibit well the relative properties of the two metals. The
blades are badly rusted, and the various layers of the hammered iron are
splitting from one another and breaking off. On
the other hand, the handle and other bronze parts are often in
remarkably good condition, unchanged except
for surface patina, usually
of blue-green copper sulfate and other compounds
.
This bell was found underground in Thanh Hoa province, roughly 120 km from Hanoi
capital. It was made of bronze from the Dong Son period (2000-2400
years old). Bells of this type were used locating elephants that had
been allowed to wander unattended to search for their own food.
Elephants have long been a symbol of power in both Africa and Asia,
home of the world’s two elephant species. One problem is they consume
about a ton (metric) of food a day. This is not something you want to
spoon feed. Therefore, they are often released at night to forage for
leaves and wood overnight. In the morning, they must be located, and for
this reason, they are given a pair of bells to wear. The Dong Son
variety had decorative “ears” and a functional rectangular window on
each side. A rope went through the holes, probably secured the clapper,
and went around the elephant’s neck to hold the bells on.
These
distinctive artifacts of this seminal period have become hard to find. A
very few have distinctive birds and “feather - men” incised on their
sides, perhaps for ritual use. these richly
decorated are both lovely and highly sought-after (and therefore
expensive).Perhaps five years ago, the vast majority seen for sale
were old bells, newly decorated by a variety of subtle techniques.
Today, However, the vast majority of both decorated and undecorated
bells seen are not authentic. The
price of even undecorated bells has risen to a level sufficient to make
it economically viable to make bells from scratch and artificially
patinate them. At least for the time being,
differences in patina (artificial versus any one of the number of true
patinas), composition of the copper alloy used, and stylistic subtleties
make it relatively easy for the trained eye to distinguish real from
not. This undoubtedly will not last, as the fakers become more skilled
in the subtleties of the “forger’s art”.
From Mr Mark Rapoport.MD
16. LE CULTURE DE HOA BINH
JEAN PIERRE PAUTREAU *
Pages: [1]
Sujet: La Culture de Hoa Binh (Văn hóa Hòa Bình) (Lu 302 fois)
0 Membres et 1 Invité sur ce sujet
17. HOMELAND OF THE HOABINHIAN IN VIETNAM
By NGUYEN VIET
New interpretation on hoabinhian chronology
There are presently two chronological systems for Hoabinhian in Vietnam :
· The classical system began
with discovery and research of french scholars on Hoabinhian since
about eighty years ago, which based on geo-palaeontological dating
methods. The yellow pleistocene sediment as ground of somes hoabinhian
sites as well as the lack of major representatives of south chinese
pleistocene fauna “ pongo-stegodon-ailuropoda” in the bone
remains of hoabinhian sediments are reasons of the dating Hoabinhian to
Holocene. The date of around 10.000 years BP of the border from QIII to
QIV is considered as the date beginning of Hoabinhian. Since 60’s years,
somes samples collected from hoabinhian sites were radiocarbon dated.
Such dates confirm the classical hoabinhian chronology; they spread from round 10.000 BP to later (table 1).
In Vietnam, the excavation at the Con Moong cave in 1976 was considered
the best chronology for pebble tools cultures in Vietnam from Sonvian
throuth Hoabinhian to Bacsonian, in which the ZK-340 dated 9905 + 150 BP
was considered the beginning of Hoabinhian and two dates ZK-339: 11090 +
185 BP and Bln-1713 II: 11840 + 75 BP represented for Sonvian (Hoang
Xuan Chinh, 1977; Nguyen Khac Su, 1977, Pham Huy Thong, 1980, Pham Huy
Thong et al.,1990).
· The Xom Trai system isnamed
after a hoabinhian cave, which located in the valley Muong Vang ,
district Lac Son , province Hoa Binh . The site was excavated firstly in
1981 ( Nguyen Van Binh, 1981) . The excavators and almost other
researchers , through studing typology of stone tools, considered it as a
Colani’s best typical middle and late hoabinhian site (Hoang Xuan
Chinh, ed. 1989). The Xom Trai chronological system is
descended from the studio radiocarbon datings for the samples, those
were collected best systematically by the author of this paper at the
excavations in Xom Trai in 1982 and 1986 (fig.1) (Nguyen Viet et
al, 1982 ; Nguyen Viet, 1988). From cultural sediment we found a lot of
chared crusts of a fruit seen similar as walnut or one of juglans sp. (fig.2).
In first time we got in a vietnamese hoabinhian site 14C-samples of
charcoal. Twelty 14C-dates spread from 18.500 BP to 16.000 BP (table 2).
In the same valley there are more two other hoabinhian sites :
rockshelter Lang Vanh , where french archaeologist M.Colani excavated in
1929 (Colani, 1929) , and cave Xom Tre (map 1). Both sites have
tool-complex similar as Xom Trai. In order to examine the results of
radiocarbon datings in Xom Trai we collected in each site one sample
from shells of stream snail melania sp. The dates are older than
16.000 BP supporting the Xom Trai 14C-datings. It’s clear, that a late
pleistocene hoabinhian living way, a cool Hoabinhian was existing during
Last Glacial Maximum.
Table 1 : THE 14C-DATES OF THE UNTYPICAL OPENING HOABINHIAN
|
||||||||
Site name
|
Labor-no.
|
Material
|
Geo. Determ.
|
Sample location (mm)
|
14C-date
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3486
|
C
|
20°16´- 105°37´
|
86 CM-A2 (400-600 )
|
8510 ± 60
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3482
|
C
|
86 CM- A2 (400-600)
|
8500 ± 60
|
||||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3804
|
C
|
see above
|
see above
|
8670 ± 70
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3486
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-A2 (400-600 )
|
8510 ± 60
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3483
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-A3 (600-800 )
|
9150 ± 60
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3497
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-A4a (1000-1200 )
|
9110 ± 60
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3487
|
LS
|
see above
|
see above
|
9200 ± 70
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3484
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-A4b ( 1200-1400 )
|
9380 ± 60
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3805
|
C
|
see above
|
see above
|
9260 ± 70
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
ZK- 340
|
LS
|
see above
|
76 CM-H4 (2400 )
|
9905 ± 150
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3806
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-B1b ( 1800-2000 )
|
10140 ± 80
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3485
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-B2a ( 2000-2200 )
|
10330 ± 70
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
ZK-339
|
LS
|
see above
|
76 CM-H4 (3200)
|
11090 ± 185
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-1713 II
|
LS
|
see above
|
76 CM-(3200)
|
11840 ± 75
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3488 II
|
LS
|
see above
|
86 CM-B3a (2400-2600)
|
11940 ± 70
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3489 II
|
LS
|
see above
|
86 CM-B4a (2800-3000)
|
11900 ± 70
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3807
|
C
|
see above
|
86 CM-B3b (2600-2800)
|
11970 ± 80
|
|||
CON MOONG
|
Bln-3490 II
|
LS
|
see above
|
86 CM B5 (3500)
|
12350 ± 70
|
|||
HANG DANG
|
Bln-913 II
|
LS
|
20°18´-105°39´
|
69 HD (600 )
|
7580 ± 80
|
|||
SUNG SAM
|
Bln-1541 II
|
LS
|
20°35´-105°45´
|
75 SS-HA(1200-1400)
|
10770 ± 80
|
|||
DONG CANG
|
Bln-3618
|
C
|
20°51´-105°24´
|
87 DC-L2 + 3
|
11360 ± 90
|
|||
DONG CANG
|
Gd -2782
|
C
|
see above
|
87 DC- L1
|
10290 ± 140
|
|||
DONG CANG
|
Gd -2779
|
C
|
see above
|
87 DC-L2a
|
11330 ± 150
|
|||
DONG CANG
|
Gd -2780
|
C
|
see above
|
87 DC-L2b
|
11590 ± 180
|
|||
DONG CANG
|
Gd -4220
|
C
|
see above
|
see above
|
11600 ± 190
|
|||
DONG CANG
|
Gd- 5250
|
C
|
see above
|
87 DC- L2c
|
11600 ± 90
|
|||
HANG MUOI
|
Bln-3616 II
|
SWS
|
20°38´-105°6´
|
87 HM-B(400)
|
10740 ± 70
|
|||
MAI DA DIEU
MAI DA DIEU
HANG CHUA
|
Bln-3540
Bln-4541
Bln-1274 II
|
C
C
SWS
|
20°24´-105°16´
see above
19°06´-105°20´
|
86 MMD(1600-1800)
86 MDD(1800-2000)
72 HC- HA- I
|
7970 ± 70
8200 ± 70
9925 ± 120
|
|||
Notes
|
||||||||
LS : shells of cyclophorus sp. ( land snail )
SWS : shells of Antimelania sp. ( fresh water snail )
C : charcoal
|
||||||||
Table 2 : THE 14C-DATES OF THE XOM TRAI GROUP (THE TYPICAL HOABINHIAN)
|
||||||||
Site name
|
Labor-no.
|
Material
|
Geo. Determ.
|
Sample location (mm)
|
14C-date
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3042
|
NC
|
20°32´-105°28´
|
XT 82 ( 900)
|
16130 ± 90
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2857
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (800-1200 )
|
17100 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2858
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (1200-1400 )
|
17440 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2859
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (1400-1600)
|
17290 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2860
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (1600-1800)
|
17450 ± 100
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2861
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (1800-2000)
|
17520 ± 100
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2862
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (2000-2200)
|
17470 ± 100
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2914
|
NC
|
see above
|
see above
|
17720 ± 100
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2863
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 82 (2200-2400)
|
17210 ± 100
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3478 II
|
SWS
|
see above
|
XT 86G(1200-1400)
|
16900 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3473
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 G(1200-1400)
|
17160 ± 100
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3474
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 G(1400-1500)
|
17010 ± 80
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3480 II
|
SWS
|
see above
|
XT 86G(1600-1700)
|
16950 ± 80
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3475
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 G(1600-1700)
|
17010 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3481 II
|
SWS
|
see above
|
XT 86G(1700-1800)
|
17230 ± 80
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3476
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 G(1700-1800)
|
17390 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3477
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 G(1800-2000)
|
17670 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-2698 II
|
SWS
|
see above
|
XT 81 H3 (1500 )
|
18400 ± 200
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3471
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 B11 (1400 )
|
18170 ± 70
|
|||
XOM TRAI
|
Bln-3472
|
NC
|
see above
|
XT 86 B12 (1600)
|
18420 ± 150
|
|||
XOM TRE
|
Bln-3707 II
|
SWS
|
20°31´105°28´
|
87 XTr-1(300)
|
16040 ± 200
|
|||
LANG VANH
|
Bln-3617 II
|
SWS
|
20°29´-105°27´
|
87 Lv (500 )
|
16470 ± 80
|
|||
Notes
|
||||||||
SWS : shells of Antimelania sp. ( fresh water snail )
NC : chared crusts of fruit Juglans-like
|
||||||||
Discussions
· The test excavation at Con Moong cave
In 1986 we made a test excavation of two squar meters at the cave
Con Moong and found from 3,5m depth cultural sediment a lot of dryed and
chared plant remain as well as animal bones, but only two flaked pebble
tools and one Da But ceramic fragment. Fifteen new 14C-datings, of
which almost come from samples of chared nut crusts of castanopis-like and of chared fragments of fruitstones canarium sp. supported the 14C-datings from the excavation 1976.
Through this test excavation and through re-studing on stone artifacts
of excavation 1976, I donn’t believe to the cultural chronology
sugessted by the excavators of 1976. That means, I donn’t see that here
occurs really a level of Sonvian (basing on only somes sonvian
technologically like pebble tools and end-pleistocene 14C-dates) located
“under the level of Hoabinhian“, as well as a level of Bacsonian
located above on the hoabinhian level (basing on the finding edge
polishing stone tools in upper layers). The so-called hoabinhian tools
found here, eventually, aren’t typical.
The sonvian-like tools and the
egde polishing tools aren’t enough to confirm the existing of Son Vi
culture and Bac Son culture in Con Moong. In the real hoabinhian
sediments man found usually sonvian-like tools as end-chopper, side
chopper , quatrial pebble mixing with the typical hoabinhian tools and
they became a part of hoabinhian tool-comlex. In her publications,
Colani considered them as representatives of Hoabinhian I. The edge
polishing tools, after nowaday knowledge, belong to a typical stone type
of hoabinhian typology and their dates, in somes case, are very old
(Nguyen Van Viet, 1989; Nguyen Van Binh, 1992). The real sonvian tools
(made almost of quarzit pebble) collected on the surfaces of hills or ancient river terras didn’t exist in the same time with sonvian-like tools (made of porfirit, rhyolit, spilit and mostly basalt, diabaze
pebble) found in the hoabinhian cave sediments. Theirs date was very
old, maybe more than 40.000 BP. The Con Moong cave, after my opinion,
belonged to Hoabinhian and represented a hoabinhian untypical tool
complex in late phase of hoabinhian living way devolopment.
· The cool Hoabinhians, the mild Hoabinhians and the warm Hoabinhians.
In the global climate context, the Last Glacial Maximum was at
around 18.000 BP. Our studies (Nguyen Viet et. al, 1988, Nguyen Viet,
1993) evidenced a cool and moist (with strong rainfall) climate during hoabinhian occupation at Xom Trai area. The local temperature estimated about 5 C – 7 C cooler than today. Any canarium chared fragments was seen in sediment of that time (the canarium was found in this area at first since 11.000 BP at Hang Muoi), instead of many chared crusts of walnut or juglans-like fruit
- a cool and moist liked tree. Those chared crusts were found at Xom
Trai so much that they are enough to use as materials for radiocarbon
dating (fig. 2). The same chared crusts were collected from the
excavation 1986 in Mai Da Dieu, where they were directly 14C-dated at
19.000 BP. From the 14C-shell sample collected at hoabinhian rockshelter
Lang Vanh we found also a chared fragment of this fruit crust. The
shell sample was dated 16.500 BP. The last existing of this fruit crust
was seen in Dong Can. The 14C-dating from other material in the same
layer is older than 11.000 BP.
At the excavation 1986 in Xom Trai we recoveried a fireplace (fig.
3). This fireplace located at the corner of cave in order to save from
wind. The thickness of ash is over 1-m suggested the longtime using of
hoabinhian occupators in a cool climate condition.
Researching the surfaces of shells melania sp.collected in Xom Trai, I recognized that they were destroyed always by thrusting with stream rollstones (fig.4).
It evidenced the influences of floot caused by usual strong rainfalls.
The strong running of floot water caused the pushing of snails to
rollstones and destroyed their surface. This event suggested a strong
rainfall period in Muong Vang valley during 18.500 to 16.000 BP. It is
in contrary to the traditional theory, which estimates a dry period
during Last Glacial Maximum in Vietnam.
The warm Hoabinhian in Vietnam could be seen at the Con Moong upper layers - since 9500 BP (fig.5), where occurs a lot of chared fragments of canarium fruitstone. The canarium sp. charactered
for the warm and moist liked tropical modern flora. This plant grows
today wildly or cultived in the regions, where the Hoabinhian
distributed. In the south and southeast asian context, this fruit were
found firstly perhaps since 12.500 BP (Kajale,1989) and it was found
populary from hoabinhian sediments. The warm Hoabinhian could beginn at
this time in all Sunda continent. The finding of many hundreds fragments
of crab crust ranguna kimboinesis Dang sp. as well as thousands of shells melania and cyclophorus per each cubit meter of Con Moong sediment showed the local moist phase dated from 9500 to 8500 BP with a peak at 9200 BP.
In the lower layers of Con Moong sediment (from the depth of 2,3 m we didn’t see any fragment of canarium, instead many chared crust fragments of chesnut or castanopis-
like, a mild moist climate liked tree. Some of them were used as
material to radiocarbon dated (samples Bln.3806, 3485 and 3807). The
dates spread from 12.000 to 10.000 BP. In the hoabinhian cave Dong Can,
these fragments were excavated at the layers of 11.500 years BP.
Sometimes they could be seen in the Xom Trai chared plant comlex. The
strong increasing quantities of land snail shells and crab remains at
layers B1b, B2a, B2b, B3a and B3b of the excavation 1986 at Con Mong
evidenced a moist phase of 11.500-10.000 BP with a peak at 10.500 BP.
Table 3 shows a combination between the
hoabinhian14C-chronology and plant remains chronology, in which it’s
very clear that the chared walnut or juglans-like crusts dominated from 19.000 to 16.000 BP. The chared nut crusts of castanopis-like were seen at most quantity during 12.000 to 10.000 and the fruit stone of canarium
sp. began at 11.000 BP, but dominated only since 9.500 BP. Both
chronologies support another and confirm a trust, that there was a
typical hoabinhian group charactered by the hoabinhian occupators at Xom
Trai, Xom Tre and Lang Vanh in the valley Muong Vang during the Last
Glacial Maximum from 18.500 to 16.000 BP. One of their major plant foods
was a nut, crusts of which were usually chared. The warmering of global
climate after 18.000 BP resulted changing in the local flora. At Con
Moong, during 12.500 to 8.000 BP we didn’t find any remains of juglans-like, instead almost castanopis-like in lower part and canarium in upper part of sediment. The strategy of hoabinhian plant food changed also under influences of global climatic sequences.
Homeland of Hoabinhian
a- The richer Hoabinhian and the poorer Hoabinhian
The hoabinhian living depended clousely on environmental
conditions. The ancient peoples had many chances to choose everywhere
corresponding to their living way, in which the most importances were weather conditions, water-/ food- sources and material sources to make tools.
The first to choose was, naturally, where occur best geological
conditions. The advantages in geological condition made usually the
“richness” of those first prehistoric occupators. Their food remains as
well stone artifacts retained in their rest places are best evidences to
confirm it. The “richness” in the Palaeolithic hintered moving life and
enabled to settle relative long their rest “houses”, led to increase
populations. Such hoabinhian country will be considered as Homeland of
Hoabinhian.
The comparation of the richness and the poorness between hoabinhian
sites presented on this paper basing on statistic quantities of stone
tools and food sources collected by the author through somes test
excavations carried out during 1982 to 1987 in Xom Trai, Con Moong and
Sung Sam. Materials from Dong Can and Mai Da Dieu , those were excavated
by vietnamese and bulgarish archaeologists in 1986 and 1988, will be
used as comparative sources.
b- The richer Hoabinhian : case of Xom Trai group
There were very few hoabinhian sites as Xom Trai, where cultural
sediment contains so much stone finds. The test excavation 1982 born 311
pebble tools and 592 flakes in a squar meter with depth of 2,4m. The
excavation 1986 on 6-squar meters with the medium depth of 1,5 m got
more than 800 pebble artifacts and round 2000 flakes. On an average
there were in each cubic meter round 100 pebble artifacts corresponding
to a weight of 30 kg. This situation could be seen at Lang Vanh.
Everywhere on the today surface we can find easy hoabinhian tools. In
1926, Colani excavated here 951 pebble tools. Compairing to the results
of test excavation 1986 at Con Moong, in medium we got only1 pebble
tools and 29 flakes per each cubic meter. The excavation 1976 in the
same site on round 60-squar meter, medium depth 2,5 m only 71 pebble
artifacts and 76 flakes were found. From the excavation 1986 at Dong Can
man found in 20-squar meters and average depth 1,5m only 38 pebble
artifacts and 1220 flakes (Nguyen Van Binh,1987). A study on stone
sources of hoabinhian occupations can help to explain this situation.
Almost of material used for hoabinhian stone industry are pebbles of porphyrit, rhyolit, spilit, basalt and diabaze. The map 2
presents the distribution of stone sources, those were used almost by
the Hoabinhian pepbles. The yellow areas show the formation Vien Nam
belonging to permi upper/trias lower (P1-T2) system, origined from magma
with thickness of more than 800 m in Ba Vi area (northern part) and
1600 m in Kim Boi area (southern part), which contains spilite intercalated with thin beds of porphiritic basalt, porphiritic diabase, albitophyre.
In central of this formation at Kim Boi located a big mass of granitoid
intrusion (in braun colour). It cut across and metamorphosed into
hornfels the mafic effusive rocks of the Vien Nam formation.
This mass
is chiefly composed of biotit granit, porphyroid fine grained two micas
granite. In the western mass occurs a part mixing rhyolite porphyry (Tran
Duc Luong ed.,1978). Almost hoabinhian sites were found in the
distribution of the Vien Nam formation, but concentrated in the southern
part, where the Vien Nam formation and mass Kim Boi built a big
mountainous massif of over 1000 m hight. Bording the foot of this massif
exist a lot of valleys, which were formated by hundreds big and small
streams transporting materials from the massif downwards. Such valleys
grounds are covered usually by some metres thick pebble beds. After each
rain season they have a new surface with million pebbles in different
forms and sizes (fig.7, 8). Living on such environment the hoabinhians oriented their stone technology majority on choosing and selecting of pebbles coresponding to form and size of tool and then on edge making.
In other palaeolithic stone industries, many flaking works would be
used to form a tool before making the working egde.
The nature gave
hoabinhians the readily forming pebbles. It hindered the devolopment of
stone working techniques and established a tradition with undevoloped
flaking technology, instead of with very early devolopment of egde
polishing technique. Some experiments making hoabinhian tools at the Xom
Trai pebble field, where is only 100 m far from the cave, show the
simplicity of producing a hoabinhian tool (Doan Duc Thanh, 1984 &
1986) (fig.9). That explains, why the hoabinhian occupators at
Xom Trai and Lang Vanh retained so much typical pebble artifacts and on
contrary, why the stone tools in Con Moong, Dong Can were found so
rarely and looked so bad.
The richness of Xom Trai hoabinhian can be recognized from food sources. We will observe it under comparativelly researching on fauna and plant remains, those collected through sieving all excavated sediment.
Hoabinhian fauna evidences consisted almost from animal bones and
teeth; shells of moluscs as snail, bivalves; crusts of some articulate
and repetile animals as rock crabs or tortoises. Studing materials
excavated at Sprite Cave (Thailand) Ch. Gorman recognized the large
spectrum huntering and collecting in hoabinhian food strategy (Gorman,
1971). Our studies at Xom Trai and Con Moong recoveried some focus orientations at the hoabinian food strategy.
There was an absolut dominance of one art of chared plant remains in each time spread. In Xom Trai, the juglans-like dominated during 18.500 to 16.000 BP, in Con Moong, the castanopis-like during 12.000 to 9.500 BP and the canarium during
9.500 to 8500 BP. In the animal food sources occured the dominance of
snails (rock- or stream snail depending on occupation environment). In
test excavation of Xom Trai 1982 we collected 142.452 shells (98%
belongs to melania), in medium round 47.000 shells per cubic
meter sediment. 142.452 snails could be estimed 238 kg edible snail
meat. In the same sediment mass we got 15 kg animal bone coresponding to
105,63 kg edible meat (Nguyen Viet, 1990). With same excavation method
we counted at Con Moong site only round 10.000 shells (60% cyclophorus, 40 % melania)
and at Sung Sam site round 9.000 shells per cubic meter cultural
sediment. Studing the living conditions of different hoabinhian sites we
can confirm the existing of rich Hoabinhians and poor Hoabinhians.
The Muong Vang valley had an ideal geological condition for
hoabinhian life. This valley is arounded by a curve of 300 – 400 m hight
mountains, which are covered by felarite humus . It was formated by
thee big streams transporting pebbles and humus from Kim Boi massif
downwards. The streams replied stone materials, water and mollusc food
for hoabinhians. The felarite humus mountains were natural gardens,
where the hoabinhians collected plant and animal foods. It became an ideal homeland for the first hoabinian occupators in this area. Fig. 10 shows the distribution of food remains on the geological catchement with radius of 5-km from central point in Xom Trai cave.
c- Xom Trai and after, the evolution of Hoabinhian in Vietnam – a hypothese.
After present knowlegde, Xom Trai cave is considered the earlest
and best typical hoabinhian site. In comming years we will carry out the
surveys following streams which spring from mountain massif of Vien Nam
formation, specially, from Kim Boi massif with hope to find some sites,
which are similar as Xom Trai or earlier than Xom Trai. The
distribution map of Hoabinhian (map 2) shows that almost
of hoabinhian sites (Con Moong, Hang Dang, Sung Sam, Dong Can, Mai Da
Dieu and Hang Chua), which belong to classical chronological system,
located relativ far from center of the hoabinhian stone source. Such
sites represented for the poor hoabinhians. It suggests an increasing of
quantities of hoabinhian sites at the change from Pleistocene to
Holocene.
The paradisiac condition in a “gold valley” as Muong Vang caused
seemly the devolopment of hoabinhian populations. At Xom Trai cave, for
example, the traces of original hoabinhian sediment, which stayed on the
limestone wall to 2 m higher than present surface, suggested that the
hoabinhian occupation continued longtimely after 16.000 BP. We found
here in the disturbed upper layers the chared fruitstones of canarium
and somes Da But ceramic fragments. They are evidences for such later
occupation. The case of Hang Muoi is a good example for later hoabinhian
increasing in the homeland region.
Hoabinhian site Hang Muoi ( “salt” cave) located on the southwest
boundary of Kim Boi massif. Stone comlex excavated here is very like to
Xom Trai, Lang Vanh. The14C-date 10.700 BP for upper layer permits to
estimate the earliest occupation at this cave at about 12.000 – 13.000
BP. That means, the Xom Trai living way increased further in somewhere
occuring same environmental condition. Such hoabinhian sites belonged to
“the typical openning Hoabinhians”.
The further openning of hoabinhian occupations to other areas,
where are more far from stone source, might evidence a devolopment of
hoabinhian under influence of population increasing. Those hoabinhian
peoples lived in some more difficult conditions, sometimes in very hight
caves (Con Moong, Sung Sam). They retained usually relativ poor and bad
looked or seemly primitiv stone tools. The case of Con Moong is the
best example for those hoabinhians. I will denominate them as “the untypical openning Hoabinhians”.
In the hoabinhian openning movement there was some hoabinhians, who oriented food strategy to the gathering mollusc living in swamp and lake condition.
Their remains built openair “koekenmoedings” nearby traditional
hoabinian valley regions. That is the case of Da But site. This site
located in lower part of river Buoi, which springs from Kim Boi massif,
where Xom Trai, Lang Vanh located. The first hoabinhian occupation at Da
But happened maybe at 8.000 – 9.000 years BP. The hoabinhian tried here
a new living way in a new environmental condition.
They used
traditionally porphyrit, spilit, rhyolit, basalt pebbles of river
Buoi, those were transported from Kim Boi massif. Mollusc living in
fresh water was used traditionally as major animal food, but not snails
instead of bivalve corbicular. However, the hoabinhian in Da But
didn’t live in caves or rockshelter, but in cottages or simple houses.
The wood or bambus working became intensiver than before. Edge polishing
tools used limited in traditional hoabinhian living way became more
requested in Da But living way. Da But ceramic was seen rarely in
hoabinhian cave sediment, but in Da But they were found usually. The Da
But living way requested using more ceramic than before. In hoabinhian
cave sediments, it’s relativ rarely to see hoabinhian burials. The
moving life in the mountains hintered the hoabinhian to have burial
field. In Da But, the deads were buried usually nearby cottages or
houses. That evidenced a living way in settlement. With Da But new
living way the hoabinhian had an open door to the neolithic (Nguyen
Viet, 1984).
Anterior Hoabinhian
The picture of anterior hoabinhian is relativ multicolour.
Traditional theory links it to Son Vi culture. As writen above, I donn’t
accept the datings for Son Vi culture, therefore, donn’t accept the
direct evolution from this culture to Hoabinhian. After my opinion,
there are today three sites, which might take part on borning
hoabinhian: Tham Khuong cave, Nguom rockshelter and Dieu rockshelter
(Mai Da Dieu). In Tham Khuong (province Lai Chau), hoabinhian tools were
found everywhere in cultural layers mixing with sonvian-like or early
Tham Khuong typical tools. The 14C- and ESR-dates in lower level spread
from 33.000 to 28.000 BP and in middle level at 15.000 BP. At Nguom
(province Thai Nguyen), the level II and III, which contain
hoabinhian-like tools and few sonvian-like tools mixing with some flake
tools, existed from 23.000 to 19.000 BP. Before that time man found a
real flake tools complex in level I and called it “Nguom industry”. At
Dieu rockshelter (province Thanh Hoa), the hoabinhian-like tools were
seen during 24.000 to 8.000 BP. Before it man found a quarzit pebble
tools comlex with estimated date of 30.000 to 24.000 BP (Nguyen Gia Doi,
1999). Studing on such tool comlexes, I think that Tham Khuong comlex
is more near to typical hoabinhian tools than Mai Da Dieu, and both
sites could take part to form the typical hoabinhian, which charactered
by Xom Trai, Lang Vanh group. Nguom site might take part significantless
on devoloping of hoabinhian.
· The case of Tham Khuong
Tham Khuuong cave was excavated in 1974. The sediment was divided
in two levels determinated by colour and occur of snail shells. The
excavator didn’t see differences in stone artifacts between layers.
After him, the pebble tools comlex Tham Khuong belongs to late
Hoabinhian (basing on the finding of some edge polishing pebble tools in
all depth of excavation area) (Chu Van Tan, 1976). Ten years later,
basing on the occur of sonvian-like, he dates this site to early
Hoabinhian (Chu Van Tan, 1984). One sample of shell cyclophorus sp. collected in the lower level (fig.
11) was dated in the radiocarbon and ESR laboratory Berlin spread from
33.000 to 28.000 BP (Nguyen Viet, 1989; Goersdoft, 1989). Influencing of
hard traditional chronological frame almost Vietnamese archaeologists
didn’t use those dates. In 1992 Nguyen Khac Su made here a test
excavation and got a new cochilien sample at the depth 1,5m
(after collector, this sample located in middle layer, considers younger
than the last sample 1974). The date messured by the Hochiminh city
14C-laboratory is 15.000 years old (Ha Van Tan ed., 1998).
In 1986, I had two weeks working at theTham Khuong tool comlex
achived in Institute of Archaeology Hanoi and reconized that this
complex belonged to early Hoabinhian with somes sonvian-like artifacts.
The best remarkable tools group of Tham Khuong is the three edges
choppers / or scrapers (fig. 12). This group differs Tham Khuong
sonvian-like tools from real openair Sonvian and hamonizes
technologically with Hoabinhian. The sonvian-like tools found in Tham
Khuong were used by some researchers (with the same methodology as they
analized tool complex of Con Moong 1976) as evidence of the exsisting of
Son Vi culture at Tham Khuong. The 14C-dates for Tham Khuong,
therefore, were considered as the beginning of Son Vi culture in Vietnam
(?!). In fact, I think somes of the openair Sonvian sites is
older than Tham Khuong. Tham Khuong didn’t belong to Sonvian, but to
Hoabinhian with many early hoabinhian technological characters (Nguyen
Viet, 1988, 1990 ; can see also in Nguyen Van Binh, 1990).
Conclusion
Hoabinhian could be seen in some very early cultural sediment as
the case at Tham Khuong. Hoabinhian existed also in very late time,
untill late Neolithic, Metal Age, and eventualy till Middle Age.
Hoabinhian presented very rich life at some sites (as Xom Trai, Lang
Vanh, Da Phuc) and in contrary very poor at other sites (as Con Moong,
Sung Sam, Dong Can). The research on Hoabinhian as well as on other
pebble tool palaeolithic cultures in Vietnam cann’t use simply a
monoline typology. It’s lack in Vietnam present the standard
excavations, which permit to make the believable chronologies for each
local region, each time spread, each local or cultural variant. The
excavations at Xom Trai (1982, 1986) and Con Moong 1986 exposed new
materials to interpret more detail on the multicolour hoabinhian
picture. The Xom Trai remains complex can consider as a standard one in
researching on Hoabinhian. The homeland of Hoabinhian in Vietnam
could be the valleys in the foot beds of Vien Nam formation massif Kim
Boi since round 20.000 years ago (map 2, larger circle). The
valley Muong Vang, after today knowlegde, might be the nucleur of this
homeland with its representatives as Xom Trai, Lang Vanh.
Address:
Dr. Nguyen viet
Center for South East Asian Prehistory
96/203 Hoang Quoc Viet st.
Cau Giay – Ha Noi
Vietnam.
E’mail: dr.nguyenviet@hn.vnn.vn
REFERENCES
CHU VAN TAN, 1976 : Excavation at Tham Khuong rockshelter (Lai Chau provinze), in Khao Co Hoc, no 18/1976, Hanoi.
CHU VAN TAN, 1984 : Dates and devoloping stages of Hoabinhian Culture, in Khao Co Hoc, 1-2/1984, pp.66-72, Hanoi.
COLANI M., 1929 : Quelques Stations Hoabinhiennes , in B.E.F.E.O, tom XXIX, 1929, pp.261-272, Hanoi.
DOAN DUC THANH, 1984 : Experimental making somes typical hoabinhian tools, in Khao Co Hoc, no 4/1984, pp.42-54, Hanoi.
DOAN DUC THANH, 1986 : Using end-flaking technology to make hoabinhian bifaces without water-polishing cover, in Khao Co Hoc, no 4/1986, pp. 59-64, Hanoi.
GOERSDOFT J. , 1989 : Alter Bestimmung durch messung der Elektronspinresonanze , in Mania, Veroefentl. Bd. 43.
GORMAN C. F., 1971 : Hoabinhian and After : Subsistence patterns in Southeast Asia during the latest Pleistocene and Early Recent periods, in World Archaeology, 2/1971, pp.300-320, London.
HA VAN TAN (Ed.) , 1998 : Archaeology of Vietnam , Band 1- Stone Age , 457p,Hanoi.
HOANG XUAN CHINH, 1977 : Excavation at Con Moong cave – a premier report , in Khao Co Hoc, no 2/1977.
HOANG XUAN CHINH (Ed.), 1989 : Hoa Binh Culture in Vietnam, 260 p, Hanoi.
KAJALE M. D.,,1989 : Mesolthic exploitation of wild plants in Sri Lanka : archaeobotanical study at the cave site of Beli-lena, in Foraging and Farming – The evolution of plant Exploitation, ed. By D.R. Harris and G.C. Hillman, pp.269-280, London.
NGUYEN GIA DOI, 1999 : Dieu Industry in local background , in Khao Co Hoc, no 3/1999, pp. 5-24, Hanoi.
NGUYEN KHAC SU, 1977 : Con Moong cave – Introduction and Remarks, in Khao Co Hoc, no 2/1977, pp. 26-35, Hanoi.
NGUYEN KHAC SU &DANG HUU LUU, 1992 : The boundary of transitive period from the Pleistocene to the Holocene in Vietnam from Data of archaeological Stratigraphy, in Khao Co Hoc, 1/1992, pp.33-37, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VAN BINH, 1981 : Excavation at Xom Trai cave ( Ha Son Binh province) – a short report, in New Archaeological Discoveries in Vietnam 1981, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VAN BINH, 1987 : Excavation at Dong Can (Ha Son Binh province) – a short report, in New Archaeological Discoveries in Vietnam 1987, pp. 38-39, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VAN BINH, 1990 : On some major periods in the devolopment of the Stone Age in Vietnam, in Khao Co Hoc, no 1-2/1990, pp.5-12, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VAN BINH, 1992 : The edge ground in Hoabinh Culture, in Khao Co Hoc, no 2/1992, pp. 33-51, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VAN VIET, 1989 : Radiocarbon Datierungen fuer die Ur- und Fruehgeschichte Nord-Vietnams, PhD-Disertation, Berlin.
NGUYEN VIET, 1984 : On the “late Neolithic” objects in the Hoa binh caves, in Khao Co Hoc, no 1-2/1984, pp. 112-114, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VIET, 1988 : Excavations at Hoabinhian Xom Trai cave (North-Vietnam), paper presented at the 2nd International Conference of Association of SEA- Archaeologists in Western Europe , 9/1988, Paris .
NGUYEN VIET, 1988a : Unterschiedliche Entwicklungen in der Steinzeit Nord-Vietnams, paper presented on the International Conference “Continuity and Discontinuity in the Evolution of Men”, 10/1988, Wittenberg – Germany.
NGUYEN VIET, 1990 : Mollusc remains in the prehistorical sites of Vietnam, in Khao Co Hoc, no 1/1990, pp. 33-67, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VIET, 1990a : The Upper Palaeolithic Rockshelter of Tham Khuong (North-Vietnam)
- Radiocarbon and ESR-datings and Typology, paper would be presented at the XIV Congress of IPPA, 8-9/1990, Yogiakarta – Indonesia.
NGUYEN VIET, 1993 : Hoabinhian Environment in Southeast Asia, paper presented on 1st Internarional Symposium “Human and Environment in the Palaeolithic”, 5/1993, Neuwied – Germany.
NGUYEN VIET, HA HUU NGA & NGUYEN KIM DUNG, 1982 : Re-excavation at Xom Trai cave (Ha Son Binh provinze), in New Archaeological Discoveries in Vietnam 1982, pp. 43-47, Hanoi.
NGUYEN VIET, KOHL G. & GOERSDORF J., 1988 : Klimasaenderungen
von End-Pleistocene to Holozene in Nordvietnam ( Contribution into the
research on the Palaeoclimate based on the Study of the Hoabinhian
Sediments in North Vietnam), paper presented on International Conference “Aplied and Historical Climatology“, 11/1988 in Elbingerode – Germany.
PHAM HUY THONG, 1980 : Con Moong cave : a notable archaeological dicovery in Vietnam,
in Asian Perspectives, no 13/1980, Honolulu.
PHAM HUY THONG, HOANG XUAN CHINH, NGUYEN KHAC SU, 1990 : Con Moong cave, Hanoi.
TRAN DUC LUONG (Ed.), 1978 : Geological Map of SR-Vietnam / Sheets of Hanoi and Ninhbinh (F-48-XXVIII & XXXIV), Hanoi.
OTHERS ARTICLES
18. A Review of the 'Hoabinhian' in Indo-China
J.M. MATTHEWS
( p.86 )
On 30 January 1932, a special set up by the Congress ans of the Far East, meeting
In HanoI, passed the following resolution (Praehits-torica Asiae Orientalis, 1932):
'It
is proposed to accept the following terminology and to recommend its
use to the First Congress of Pre-and Proto history : "Hoabinhian: a
culture composed of implements that are in general flaked with somewhat
varied types of primitive workmanship. It is characterized by tools
often worked only on one face, by hammerstones, by implements of
sub-triangular section, by discs, short axes and almond-shaped
artifacts, with an appreciable number of bone tools." The Hoabinhian is
divided into three sub-stages: "Hoabinhian
I:
flaked implements only, rather large and crude. Hoabinhian II: some
what smaller implements of finer workmanship, associated with
protoneoliths. Hoabinhian III: yet smaller implements, flakes with
secondary working; with rare excep-tions no protoneoliths.'"
"Protoneoliths: simple artifacts fashioned from flaked stone or a
pebble, with polish confined to the cutting edge." This resolution had
its origin in excavations made in 1929 by MIle Madeleine Colani in Hoa
Binh Province, southwest of Hanoi (Colani 1927).
Deposits
were excavated in open caves or rockshelters at nine sites: Sao Dong,
Lang Neo, Lang Bay, X-Kham, M-Khang, Som Jo, Lang Vo, Trieng-Xen and Ha
Bi. The archaeological deposits, described by Colani as kitchen middens,
were composed of a mixture of calcareous cave earth and Melania shells.
No ref-erence was made to stratification within the archaeological
deposits-with the exception of Sao Dong. Here the suggested
stratification appeared to be purely archaeological, although the
criterion by which the deposit was divided into layers is not clear.
Unfortunately MIle Colani did not describe the methods and techniques
that were used during the excavations.
The
main component of the assemblages was a flaked stone industry. This had
been fash-ioned of rolled river pebbles, whose naturally polished
cortex, retained in varying degrees on one or both surfaces of the
artifacts, had been commonly incorporated into the cutting edge. Present
also were a small number of edge-ground tools and sherds of simple
earthenware.
MATTHEWS: 'Hoabinhian' in Indonesia 87
MATTHEWS: 'Hoabinhian' in Indonesia 87
A
few bone artifacts were also found. Faunal remains were represented by
gastropod shells and vertebrate bones. Human remains were also reported.
Colani distinguished, but did not formally define, several types among
the flaked stone artifacts. The various categories included strikers,
points, almond-shaped tools, coup de poing or clubs, scrapers, perfectly
elliptical implements, small implements and short axes. The latter were
flaked pebble artifacts that had been abruptly truncated at the butt so
that the flat base was at right angles to the main axis.
They were possibly broken remnants of other tools. any of the artifacts recovered were described
and illustrated; others were either de-scribed, uniIIustrated, or illustrated but not described. Many tools were described in detail. Although the descriptions do contain facts relevant to a typology-.g., measurements of maximum length-the other points were not stated with sufficient precision to be
used in an objective classification. The imprecision caused by the absence of definitions is reflected in the number of names used by MIle Colani. In a description of 82 tools from Sao Dong, 28 names were used. A morphological sequence was reported from four of the sites: Sao Dong, X-Kham, Trieng-en and M-Khang. The coarsest, largest and most assive artifacts were reported from the bottom of the deposits, and the smallest and best-made from the top. Between the extreme sizes in the top and bottom levels there were intermediate types, demonstrating that a diminution in general size of the artifacts occurred gradually. It also seems probable that there were no bifacially flaked pebble tools in the lower parts of the deposits, since bifacially worked pebble tools were found only at the higher levels.
For the sake of clarity, Colani assembled the artifacts into three groups called Early, Inter-mediate and Late. It was a very general grouping, and no boundary between each period was distinguished. The refinement reported for the collections, progressing from the lowest part of the deposits towards the top, was deemed gradual and fairly continuous. Exceptions of 'early' types in high deposits and 'less ancient' types appearing prematurely at deeper levels were noted. Thegeneral nature of the artifacts of the three categories was described. The lack of concise definition of types and description of objective and measurable characteristics diminishes the significance of MIle Colani's classification. Colani has not established a typology for the collections from Sao Dong or from the other nine sites at Hoa Binh. This consideration in turn reflects on the threefold division described above, which is not derived from stratification within the deposits. Colani described only a small
proportion of the artifacts from the nine sites. For example, only 82 artifacts from Sao Dong were described, yet over a thousand tools were found there.
Neither did she state the principles by which the artifacts had been selected for description. The described sample may truly reflect the nature of the collection as a whole; on the other hand it may be seriously biased. The text of the report throws no light on this point. It is quite possible that Colani has misunderstood the nature of the pebble tool collections by trying to formulate discrete types. It may be that these artifacts occur in a continuous range of shape and size. Thus it would be possible to select tools that are long and narrow and contrast them with those that are round and flat. However, in order that these may be archae-ologically significant types, it is important to show that the rest of the collection does not fall into positions ranging continuously between these two extreme forms.
http//scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/16758/AP-v9n1-86-91.pdf?sequence=1
19. Dong Son Culture
John W. Olsen
Beginning in the middle of the first millennium b.c.,
Southeast Asia, including the southern fringes of China, came under the
influence of a distinctive metal-using tradition called Dong Son.
The discovery of the protohistoric Dong Son culture was the first exposure to Europeans of a complex Bronze Age stratified society in mainland Southeast Asia. At the site of Dong Son, on the south bank of the Ma River near Thanh Hoa in northern Viet Nam, excavations conducted by Pajot and, later, by Janse revealed a rich cemetery complex containing objects of bronze, iron, pottery, imported semiprecious stones, and artifacts of Chinese origin (Janse, 1958). Subsequent excavations at Vietnamese sites such as Viet Khe, Lang Ca, and Lang Vac (Bellwood 1985, Tan 1980), indicate that although the type site was peripheral to the focus of Dong Son activities in the Red River delta (Higham, 1989), it is nonetheless typical of this aspect of mainland Southeast Asian Bronze Age culture in that it provides dramatic evidence of the socially stratified, semiurban nature of the culture as a whole.
Initially, the Dong Son was regarded as a distinctive Bronze Age culture principally on the basis of archaeological materials derived from burial contexts at the type site and similar localities along the eastern margin of the Southeast Asian peninsula. Subsequent excavations of habitation sites such as Co Loa in the floodplain of the Red River, near Hanoi, as well as the recovery of Dong Son-style bronzes over a much wider region of Southeast Asia, including the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, have forced a reevaluation of the nature of Dong Son culture and its geographical and temporal parameters. The bulk of recent research indicates a local Vietnamese origin for the Dong Son culture. Archaeologists are able to delineate a clear development trajectory between roughly 1000 B.C. and 1 B.C. in which stylistic elements of local Neolithic origin are gradually incorporated within the products of the Dong Son bronze-casters.
The Dong Son is best known for its bronze wares, including so-called drums (which often functioned also as cowrieshell containers), large bucket-shaped vessels termed situlae, daggers, swords, and socketed axes. The scale of the metal industry indicated by these finds is an indirect measure of the complexity of Dong Son society (the bronze drum from Co Loa, for example, weighs 159 pounds (72 kg) and would have required the smelting of between 1 and 7 tons of copper ore).
Toward the end of the Dong Son sequence, during the last two centuries b.c., Chinese culture, as an exponent of the expansionist Han empire, began to exert greater and greater influence on Dong Son civilization. This influence is detectable in the form of bronze mirrors, coins, seals, halberds, and other small artifacts that regularly occur in later Don Son sites. It is also likely that it was the Chinese who introduced iron technology into the Don Son metallurgical repertoire.
Historical documents record that in a.d. 43 the Dong Son homeland in Southeast Asia finally succumbed to Chinese invasions from the north and the entire region was incorporated within the territory of the Han dynasty.
The extent to which superficially similar metal-using traditions in adjacent regions such as Thailand (e.g., the Ban Chiang complex) and south China (e.g., the Dian civilization) should be considered an integral part of the Dong Son tradition remains to be adequately explored. [See also Asia: Prehistory and Early History of Southeast Asia; China: Han Empire; Southeast Asia, Kingdoms and Empires Of.]
The discovery of the protohistoric Dong Son culture was the first exposure to Europeans of a complex Bronze Age stratified society in mainland Southeast Asia. At the site of Dong Son, on the south bank of the Ma River near Thanh Hoa in northern Viet Nam, excavations conducted by Pajot and, later, by Janse revealed a rich cemetery complex containing objects of bronze, iron, pottery, imported semiprecious stones, and artifacts of Chinese origin (Janse, 1958). Subsequent excavations at Vietnamese sites such as Viet Khe, Lang Ca, and Lang Vac (Bellwood 1985, Tan 1980), indicate that although the type site was peripheral to the focus of Dong Son activities in the Red River delta (Higham, 1989), it is nonetheless typical of this aspect of mainland Southeast Asian Bronze Age culture in that it provides dramatic evidence of the socially stratified, semiurban nature of the culture as a whole.
Initially, the Dong Son was regarded as a distinctive Bronze Age culture principally on the basis of archaeological materials derived from burial contexts at the type site and similar localities along the eastern margin of the Southeast Asian peninsula. Subsequent excavations of habitation sites such as Co Loa in the floodplain of the Red River, near Hanoi, as well as the recovery of Dong Son-style bronzes over a much wider region of Southeast Asia, including the Indo-Malaysian archipelago, have forced a reevaluation of the nature of Dong Son culture and its geographical and temporal parameters. The bulk of recent research indicates a local Vietnamese origin for the Dong Son culture. Archaeologists are able to delineate a clear development trajectory between roughly 1000 B.C. and 1 B.C. in which stylistic elements of local Neolithic origin are gradually incorporated within the products of the Dong Son bronze-casters.
The Dong Son is best known for its bronze wares, including so-called drums (which often functioned also as cowrieshell containers), large bucket-shaped vessels termed situlae, daggers, swords, and socketed axes. The scale of the metal industry indicated by these finds is an indirect measure of the complexity of Dong Son society (the bronze drum from Co Loa, for example, weighs 159 pounds (72 kg) and would have required the smelting of between 1 and 7 tons of copper ore).
Toward the end of the Dong Son sequence, during the last two centuries b.c., Chinese culture, as an exponent of the expansionist Han empire, began to exert greater and greater influence on Dong Son civilization. This influence is detectable in the form of bronze mirrors, coins, seals, halberds, and other small artifacts that regularly occur in later Don Son sites. It is also likely that it was the Chinese who introduced iron technology into the Don Son metallurgical repertoire.
Historical documents record that in a.d. 43 the Dong Son homeland in Southeast Asia finally succumbed to Chinese invasions from the north and the entire region was incorporated within the territory of the Han dynasty.
The extent to which superficially similar metal-using traditions in adjacent regions such as Thailand (e.g., the Ban Chiang complex) and south China (e.g., the Dian civilization) should be considered an integral part of the Dong Son tradition remains to be adequately explored. [See also Asia: Prehistory and Early History of Southeast Asia; China: Han Empire; Southeast Asia, Kingdoms and Empires Of.]
Bibliography
J. M. Janse, Archaeological Research in Indo-China. Volume III, The Ancient Dwelling Site of Dong-S' on (Thanh-Hoa, Annam) (1958).Find This Resource
Peter Bellwood, Man's Conquest of the Pacific (1979).Find This Resource
Ha Van Tan, Nouvelles Recherches Prehistoriques et Protohistoriques au Vietnam, Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient 68 (1980):113–54. Peter Bellwood, Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago (1985).Find This Resource
Charles Higham, The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia (1989).Find This Resource
No comments:
Post a Comment