h. james - trade culture and society
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disintegration in the 6th
century AD. Some of them from the 6th
to 9th
centuries AD
formed a loose cultural federation based on Buddhist cultural practices known from the
Chinese dynastic records as To-lo-po-ti or Dvaravati; others exhibited Hinduised
cultural traits. Altogether, the sum of these researches demonstrates that the area was
populated by various peoples and cultures since pre-historic times; and that the Tai-Lao
peoples were probably inhabiting the regions north of the Mun-Chi basin since at least
early proto-historic times, whilst the Mon-Khmer peoples were settled in the areas south
of the Mun-Chi basin, on the Korat Plateau and around the head of the Gulf of Siam. The
transformation of these sub-urban regional traditions into urbanized 'states' or 'city states'
was once thought to have been a result of external forces such as 'Indianization' - the
transfer of Indian cultural influences either through immigrants/colonizers or traders in
the second century AD - or passively received stimuli from overseas trade networks. In
correcting this extreme view, scholars then adopted the position that the rise of social
complexity among the iron age muang came about as a result of both internal dynamics
and external cultural contacts. Both Vallibhotama ( 1984;1992 ) and Dhida Saraya
(1989; 1992) argue that this view fails to give adequate recognition to the system of
interdependent linkages underpinning the social, cultural, economic and political
interactions of the pre- and proto-historic settlements. Thus Dhida Saraya (1992) argues
that these pre-urban centres did not develop in isolation from each other; and that the
strength of their internal relationships not only conditioned their interactions with the
external influences, India and China, as well as the Middle East and the Austronesian
world, but also with the new political entities, Funan and Chenla in the Mekong Basin,
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Lin-yi and Champa in central Vietnam, and the early city states of the Irrawaddy and
Chao Phraya basins.
In the first part of this paper I discuss the evidence for the patterns of early
hierarchic settlements in the Mun-Chi river basin and on the Korat Plateau. In the second
part I discuss the emergent city states of U-Thong, Sri Thep and Sri Chanasa; and in the
final section the Funan-Dvaravati dynamic as it interacted with the city states of the
Peninsula world, a world that belonged to both mainland and island Southeast Asia.
In taking this approach I am responding to the detailed examination of the concept
of an early Mon kingdom, Ramannyadesa, in Lower Burma by my colleague, Professor
Michael Aung-Thwin; and his finely argued thesis that this was a fifteenth century
construct; that the alleged conquest of a Mon kingdom at Thaton in 1057 by Aniruddha
of Pagan is legend and allegory; and that the conquest was an imagined event (Aung-
Thwin, 2005) which should be interpreted allegorically rather than literally.
Approaching the subject from the other end of the spectrum, I have examined the
evidence for Mon settlements, incipient states and city states, in a broad spectrum
from the North East of modern day Thailand to the western regions close to the present
day Myanmar border. This evidence seems consistent with Professor Aung-Thwins
research that Lower Burma in the proto-historic period, was not a significant locus of
Mon settlement. Accordingly, in this paper I refer to what Pamela Gutman has called the
westward drift of Mon culture from NE to SW in the period under examination.
Moreover, I would like to suggest the possibility that such westward drift should
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perhaps not be seen in a linear mode; but in a circular one, that is, as the patterns of
settlement changed and economic interactions impacted on the sites in the central Chao
Phraya basin, there may have been a converse or return movement of cultural influences
and perhaps people as well from some of the central settlements towards those of the
northeast on the Korat Plateau.
PART 1
The early Moated Settlements in the Mun and Chi River Basins during the proto-
historic period
Here, I want to focus on the work of Elizabeth Moore, Srisak Vallibhotama and
Dhida Saraya. Elizabeth Moore (1990) identified more than 100 moated settlements in
the Mun and Chi River basins in Northeast Thailand using the collection of aerial
photographs in the Williams-Hunt collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.1
She
distinguished these sites from the rectangular temple enceintes and reservoirs of the later
Korat Khmer period of the 9th - 13th century AD which are considered to have a
primarily ceremonial purpose. On the contrary, the moated settlements of the Mun and
Chi River basins feature a moat-round-moat sectional profile, the base of each mound
being surrounded by a moat, and each moat bounded by one or two earthworks.
Vegetation grows around the crests of the earthworks which follow the natural contours
of the mound. Each moated site thus seems an integral and natural part of the local
topography. Far from having a ceremonial purpose, these moated earthworks appear to
be intended for the very utilitarian purpose of conserving water during the four month
hot dry season in the northeast (Moore, 1990: 201).
1These are some 5000 prints taken at the end of World War II of an area covering Burma, Thailand,
Singapore, Malaya and the Nicobar Islands and the Angkorian culture of Cambodia. Since they were
taken before the inroads of urban development disturbed the archaeological remains during the past
decades, they provide valuable evidence of a culturally cohesive complex in the area from present day
Nakorn Ratchasima to Sisaket during the period 1000BC - 1000AD.
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Using both nearest neighbour and rank-size analysis on a core group of 80,
Moore concluded that the Mun Basin moated sites were chosen for their proximity to
local hydrology and terrain, and not by the constraints of internal political networks, or
external strategic or trade considerations. She suggests that they could be the result of a
long period of evolution in a well-populated region of relatively uniform natural
resources. The culture appears to have developed laterally rather than vertically with
new elements incorporated in, and co-existing with the old (Moore, 1986: 204). The
sites appear to be distributed at random and clustered on the Roi-Et soil group on land
moderately suited for wet rice cultivation. They range in area from one to sixty eight
hectares.
Based on a ground survey, Moore calculated that each moat had a minimum
depth of two metres of water when fully operational. She considers this estimate
consistent with evidence from inscriptions and Tai legends which record that the moats
were dug to the depth of an elephant. If a minimum of half of the available water were
sluiced into the surrounding fields, Moore calculated that each surface hectare of moat
area could provide one hectare metre - 10,000 cubic metres - of irrigation water. Thus an
average site with a 23 hectare mound surrounded by a 40 metre wide moat could provide
seven hectare metres or 70,000 cubic metres of irrigation water. If a minimum of 1.5
hectare metres of water is required for a dry-season crop, and the average yield per
hectare of broadcast rice is 1333.8 kg, assuming that average consumption is 179kg per
person per year, then Moore calculates that the average moat could produce 6,135
kilograms of rice, or sufficient for 34 adults for a year. Given the size and distribution
of the moated settlements, Moore suggests that the moats were used to irrigate rice fields
and that the increased water supply, even if not available throughout the entire year,
could have fostered agricultural development, new rice strains and occupational
differentiation. She notes that four occupational zones similar to those identified by
Adams (1966) in Mesopotamia, are identifiable in the area bounded by the Mun River
basin moated settlements. Thus the location of the moated sites in the midst of rice
fields suggests that the contiguous areas were habitually used for rice cultivation; the
elevated parts of the mound were used to support upland crops such as corn and tapioca
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flora and fauna, and defence. Moore acknowledges that further identification of social
structures needs to await excavation of specific artefacts from the larger moated sites
which range up to 25 hectares; nevertheless it could be surmised that the construction of
the complex multi-tiered moats required a certain amount of cooperative labour
organisation, if not a definite form of social hierarchy. The extent and contiguity of the
moated sites in three groups in the Mun and Chi River basins - the Phimai group, the
Nakorn Ratchasima group and the Lam Plai Mat group - suggest the presence of
chiefdoms (Bayard, 1984: 163, Wheatley, 1983: 90) among these wet rice, metal making
socio-cultural complexes.
In a similar study of moated settlements on the floodplain of the lower Mun and Chi
River basins, Srisakra Vallibhotama identified 36 sites where iron smelting was an
integral part of the technocomplex. At a large moated settlement in Amphoe Chumpon
Buri, Surin province, an iron smelting site on the same mound as a burial ground was
found enabling stratigraphic excavation in which iron slag was found associated with
burial pots of a tradition dating back to about 1000BC. Vallibhotama is of the view that
iron-smelting here played a significant role in the evolution of socio-cultural
specialization among these settlements. Since the amount of iron smelting seems to
exceed local need, it has been suggested that it may have either been stimulated by, or
been part of, an economic network in which iron implements were traded to other
regions. Vallibhotama linked the development of the moated settlements in this area
with the rise of iron smelting technocomplexes (Vallibhotama, 1984: 125). In terms of
increasing social complexity, Vallibhotama further linked those moated settlements
which have double or triple moats with those of larger size fortified by moats and
earthworks such as the ones on the southern bank of the Mun river - Ban Pakiam, Ban
Dong Phong, Ban Khok Muang and Ban Thung Wang. In the Lam Phang Su area west
of Lam Phlapphla, he identifies another group of moated settlements, considered to
exhibit elements of sophisticated planning and structures, as fortified settlements of a
larger size indicating a greater concentration of population. These settlements are Ban
Muang Su, Ban Saen Si, Ban Yawuk, Ban Han Hai, Ban Muang Kwang and Muang
Phutthai Song. This group of settlements appears to be closely linked by a network of
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millennium BC. Higham (1989) has shown that iron and lead sources are very
widespread in mainland Southeast Asia particularly in these river basins; laterite is also
widespread in northeast Thailand. Whilst iron-working was taking place in both China
and India from about 600BC and iron-casting had developed in China by 300BC, it is
not clear whether iron smelting in early Thailand was a local development, or in
response to earlier contacts. As Higham (1989) has asked, the question is whether the
iron-using centres in Southeast Asia had already developed skill in iron metallurgy
before the first Indian and Chinese contacts, or whether such initial contacts stimulated
their development. It is generally agreed, that whatever the details of the process, the
iron age muang of northeast Thailand, and the basins of the Chao Phraya and Ban
Pakong rivers give evidence of increasing socio-cultural complexity and possibly of a
move to centralization in adoption of an element of structured political organization.
Moore (1986) in her examination of the moated settlements in the Mun and Chi river
valleys considered that the larger moated sites such as that at Muang Fa Daed have
ceremonial and defensive functions quite distinct from that of the much smaller
hydraulically derived moated settlements of the earlier Bronze Age. It is clear that by at
least 500BC and possibly earlier, the pattern of life in the Bronze Age ban was being
substantially altered. Whether these far reaching changes to the social and cultural
context of prehistoric Thailand arose from increasing population pressures, doubted by
Bronson (1992); or from environmental changes requiring diversification in the way
resources were used; or from the need to organize and control labour resources rather
than land, it is certain that the end result was greater socio-political complexity leading,
by the first years of the Christian era, to the emergence of states and city states
participating in the east-west international and inter-regional trade networks.
Evidence of participation in such trade networks by the people of an iron age
muang comes from Ban Don Ta Phet in Kanchanaburi Provice, western Thailand where
a carnelian statuette of a leaping lion was among the grave goods and iron implements
unearthed by Ian Glover and Pisit Charoenwongsa during excavations undertaken in
1981 and 1984. The leaping carnelian lion is said to be evidence of exchange contact
with India, since the statuette was used to represent the Buddha at this time. Here in
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1975 schoolchildren found a cache of potsherds and beads which under the direction of
Chin You-di of the Thai Fine Arts Department revealed a rich iron age site.
Inhumations on an east-west orientation similar to those at Nong Nor and Khok Phanom
Di revealed an extensive array of grave goods including pottery, bronzes, iron objects,
spindles, whorls and glass beads. The Glover-Charoenwongsa research identified five
different fabric types in a woven textile complex at Ban Don Ta Phet - hemp, the most
common material used; wild silk on a fragment of woven textile adhering to a bronze
vessel; cotton on a bone fragment. Whilst Kijngam and Higham (1980) had identified
silk at Ban Na Di, the identification of cotton at Ban Don Ta Phet is said, by Glover, to
be the earliest at a prehistoric site in this area. In his view, it reinforces his argument set
out in another context (Glover, 1989) for very early links with India, where cotton was
domesticated. Ban Don Ta Phet may have been a centre for textile craft weaving. In
the late period of Ban Chiang, contemporary with Ban Don Ta Phet, spindle whorls for
weaving appear, and again at Non Pa Kluay in northeast Thailand (Wilen 1989) in a
sequence spanning the Ban Don Ta Phet finds.
Together with the iron objects designed for agriculture, hunting and fishing - the
socketed tip for a hoe or spade, billhooks, spears and arrowheads (destroyed or bent
when interred with the dead) - were many decorative bronzes, bracelets, rings and bells,
bowls cast in the cire perdue method, none of which were connected with war or
conflict. The bronze industry was indicative of a people who enjoyed personal
decoration and had an artistic flair as demonstrated in the engraving of an elegant
coiffured woman on a bronze bowl from Ban Don Ta Phet.
The variety of beads - translucent with prismatic shapes, monochrome in a range
of colours - has led Glover to call this cache the largest corpus of antique glass beads in
Thailand. Over 3,000 were found mostly of glass, whilst some 600 were of carnelian,
agate, jade and rock crystal. He states that such beads were first made at a number of
sites on the southeastern coast of India, such as Arikamedu. By the beginning of the
Christian era they were also being made at sites in Southeast Asia. One of these at
Khuan Lukpad in Krabi Province on the west coast of southern Thailand has been dated
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by Bennet Bronson to at least 500AD. He identifies it as an industrial centre specialised
in the working of tin, semi-precious stones and glass. Bronson (1990) states that the
glass working techniques here in a sparsely populated and isolated area, are the earliest
examples of this particular type of technology yet found in Southeast Asia. The site is
abundant in industrial refuse, but not rich in trade goods indicating perhaps that it
serviced domestic or interregional requirements; it was a manufacturing centre, not a
trade entrepot. Bronson (1990: 213) considers the Khuan Lukpad industrial complex
arose to meet the needs of the rapid population expansion and economic growth which
occurred across the region in the early Christian era.
The Khuan Lukpad site revealed much metallurgical slag from tin smelting
together with pieces of jewellery, rolled tin strips and flat cake-shaped ingots. Bronson
states that it is probably the earliest tin smelting site yet discovered in Southeast Asia. It
was also a centre for stone bead manufacture. Here were found large quantities of
unshaped carnelian, onyx and quartz fragments, carnelian bead blanks, cylinders of a
brown resin-like substance used by jewellers to hold gems while grinding and polishing.
Carnelian was popular for the making of beads and personal ornaments only from the
time of the High Metal Age (600 BC - 200BC) according to Ho Chui-Mei (1992),
suggesting that it represented a technological advance beyond the capacity of the
craftsmen of the Early Metal Age (1,500BC - 600BC). Lapidary methods were used to
work both glass and stone. Stone seals, oval-shaped and made of carnelian were found
engraved with motifs of Indian-Pallava (6th to 9th centuries AD) and Classical
Mediterranean origin. Those engraved with the Greek and Roman goddesses, Tyche and
Perseus, may have been part of a replication industry in which gem-cutters copied the
Mediterranean originals for some time after the decline of Roman seal production in the
4th to 5th centuries AD. Whilst it is possible that they represent earlier 1st to 2nd
century AD direct contact with the Graeco-Roman world, Bronson cautions against such
an early date since they resided with artefacts of a much younger date. Compared with
the very rich array of imported artefacts of Chinese porcelain and stonewares, Middle
Eastern, Indian glassware and Persian earthenwares found further up the coast at Ko
Kho Khao, such imported artefacts are rare at Khuan Lukpad. Bronson is therefore
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inclined to think this industrial complex was one engaged in import-substitution to meet
the requirements of the domestic economy. He suggests that the craftsmen at this site
knew how to melt glass as attested by the remains of glass-melting pots, but did they
also know how to make glass? Glass sand of moderate quality occurs nearby in Phuket
and Krabi provinces; glass slag found at the site may be the debris of glass making
rather than just glass working. Such a centre could have imported some of its glass in
bulk or scrap form, and could have manufactured other items (Bronson,1986: 219).
Most glass beads appear to have been made by the drawn method, not wound, but there
is a notable absence of glass working blowpipes from this era in Southeast Asia.
Bronson states that glass moulding was not known at Khuan Lukpad, but that the
simpler hotworking techniques - the use of tools to press or cut a bead into shape while
the glass is still soft - were used to shape the larger beads. He has identified beads of 13
different colours ranging from the blue/blue greens to orange/reds and monochrome.
While some beads were clearly imported, others were made locally, the result of a
process of technology transfer possibly from an earlier complex elsewhere in Southeast
Asia, such as Oc-Eo.
The beadmakers of this isolated industrial complex at Khuan Lukpad had access
to a limited range of techniques and material; they did not have access to non-lead
glasses in the manganese violet and cobalt blue range; nor did they make multi-coloured
beads. Nevertheless, their skills went well beyond that of village level craft production.
The industrial techniques used produced beads in quantity were divided into specialised
tasks. The diversity of the raw materials required for the production suggests a highly
organised supply system. Bronson notes that the isolation of the site, the number of
industries centred there, the distant location of potential customers also indicate a
complex marketing system for these products. In terms of the rise of social complexity
in the last centuries of the first millenium BC and the first centuries of the Christian era,
Khuan Lukpad raises some interesting issues. Given that its location may have been to
take advantage of a ready supply of raw materials, why did such an industrial complex
not become the centre of an urban civilization? As Bronson asks, why are there no
monuments or fortifications here? There were clearly other industrial complexes around
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based on metallurgy such as those in the Lopburi area and at Phu Lon in the northeast;
these also did not seem to become the centres of complex urbanized states at this time.
Were the factors stimulating the rise of social complexity distinct from those of
industrial development? In an illuminating essay on this issue Donn Bayard (1992)
stated that whilst everyone would agree on the importance of trade as one factor in the
rise of complex societies, it is obviously not the key factor. The extensive trade
networks in northeast Thailand some 2000 years prior to the beginnings of
centralization, as evidenced by the material culture of Non Nok Tha, Ban Na Di and Ban
Chiang, in themselves apparently did not create an urban tradition.
From Ban Don Ta Phet to Ongbah on the River Khwae Yai and a series of
sites in the Chao Phraya and Pasak Valleys archaeologists have unearthedevidence of this High Metal Age culture in Thailand. Contemporaneous with Ban
Don Ta Phet, the society of Ongbah had two groups one, called the Iron Age
aristocrats (Higham, 1998), were accorded boat shaped coffins - the others, buried
with head to the east or northeast, had no such coffins. Interred with them were
iron hoes, knives, spear blade, arrowheads and chisels, suggesting the tools of the
workmen as compared with the glass and stone beads, bronze ornaments and iron
weapons and tools in the boat shaped coffins. Higham has proposed that the boat
shaped coffins represent clear social and economic distinctions in the community.
Five bronze drums of the Dongson culture of Vietnam found with these burials
indicate participation in the regional Southeast Asian exchange network, but they
also show that the elite of Ongbah had the means to purchase them and to be able
to have them interred with their other possessions in death. Sorensen's (1990)
investigation of the decorative motifs on these drums and particularly the steering
devices on boats shown on the Vietnamese drums concluded that the boats were
craft suitable for river transport of men and goods, possibly used for inshore
navigation, but less suitable for seagoing expeditions. However, the boat depicted
on the Ongbah 89 drum is significantly different, for a fixed rudder is attached to
a circle at the rear end of a short keel. Sorenson claims that this is not only the
earliest evidence of such a technological innovation, but that it suggests the
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possibility of deep sea navigation (1990: 196). He compares it with similar boats
depicted on the drums from Huu Chung province in Vietnam indicating that the
similarities suggest they are contemporary and date to about the 4th century BC.
Overall Sorensen concluded that the various types of Heger I drums of the
Dongson culture show that boats suitable for river transport did carry kettledrums
and that boats with fixed rudders existed which were able to transport the
kettledrums abroad, perhaps even as far as eastern Indonesia (Heine-Geldern,
1947: 167 - 179).
Sorensen also makes some interesting observations on other aspects of the
material culture drawn from the Dongson drums at Ongbah. The houses depicted
on the drum namedMakalamau, found with four other drums in 1937 on Gunung
Api, eastern Indonesia, stand on piles, have saddle-shaped roofs lower in the
middle than at the projecting ends, and without poles supporting the projecting
roof ends. Whilst such houses are also shown on the drum from Quang Xuong
province and are known in Indonesia, Sorensen states that they are exactly the
same as those on drum 86 from Ongbah, possibly indicating they were made at
some centre on mainland Southeast Asia. The house shown is not therefore
essentially an Indonesian house; more likely it depicts a reception or assembly
hall in its culture of origin, possibly Thanh Hoa province (Sorensen 1990: 197).
From the sites of Tha Muang in central Thailand, Noen Ma Kok north of
the Khao Wong Prachan Valley, Ban Wang Hai south of Lamphun, Ban Yang
Thong Tai east of Chiang Mai, Ban Wang Hat in the Yom River Valley, Ban
Bung Ya in Khamphaeng Phet, Chansen, Sri Thep in the Pasak River Valley, Ban
Nong Daeng, and the extensive moated site of U-Tapao, the Iron Age culture of
Thailand is manifest in a series of agate, carnelian and glass bead oranaments,
iron tools and spearheads, pottery vessels, bronze bangles and an ivory comb at
Chansen which was decorated with geese, horses and Buddhist symbols. Some of
the carnelian and exotic glass beads indicate participation in regional exchange
networks (Higham, 1998: 144). Whilst such communications had a part to play in
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strengthening the links between communities in the prelude to the rise of more
complex societies, it is in the northeast of Thailand and on the Korat Plateau that
the clearest evidence for increasing social complexity occurs around 400BC,
approximately 400 years later than a corresponding development in the Dongson
culture of the Red River Delta in Vietnam. Thus an Iron Age culture was
widespread in Thailand and in Vietnam well before the southward expansion of
the Han Dynasty in the second century BC.
The transition from the autonomous ban of the Sakhon Nakhon Basin to
the more complex social organizations evident in the muang of the Korat Plateau
has been investigated by many archaeologists, both Thai and foreign, since the
1970's. They have built up a picture of rapid demographic change in this area of
northeast Thailand in the period 500BC - 500AD as the number and size of
settlements increased accompanied by technological, social and economic
developments. In his investigations into the moated settlements on the low
terraces and floodplains of the Sakhon Nakhon Basin and the Korat Plateau,
Srisakra Vallibhotama (1984) distinguished those early settlements in the Sakhon
Nakhon Basin built on the low terrace of the upper Nam Songkhram valley from
those in the Korat basin on the floodplain of the Mun and Chi river system. The
former, he concludes, show no sign of development beyond that of the village,
ban, community. The latter, on the other hand exhibit staged development from
unmoated settlements to moated and fortified settlements. According to
Vallibhotama, these fortified settlements are the towns and cities which became
the seats of the chiefdoms (Wheatley, 1983; Bellwood, 1985; Higham, 1989) in
the proto-historic period and which are found scattered around the floodplain. He
hypothesizes that they then spread to the low terrace areas of the Korat basin
where they encountered the rituals of Indianized culture through contact with the
Chenla sovereignty from the Mekong basin in the sixth century AD, and then the
Buddhist culture of the Dvaravati polity as it spread through the Chao Phraya
basin in the 7th century AD (1984: 128). These are the chiefdoms which
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developed independently in Thailand from their own socio-cultural dynamics
prior to their transformation through cultural contacts with India.
Thus of the 172 settlements excavated in the Sakhon Nakhon basin, 84
were unmoated prehistoric sites of the Ban Chiang culture. Of the remainder,
only three moated sites were revealed: at Ban Don Ko in Nong Han Kumphawapi
Lake, and two others at Amphoe Nong Han, Udon Thani, and Sakhon Nakhon
city. Apart from Ban Don Ko which has some remains of upright stones
(megaliths) inscribed with Buddhist symbols of the Dvaravati style and a pillar
inscribed in the Mon script of the 7th century AD, Vallibhotama states that there
is no evidence of development here before the 9th century AD. By contrast, on
the floodplain of the lower Mun-Chi valley, over 36 sites were revealed
associated with iron smelting and moated settlement patterns of occupation.
In the lower Mun-Chi valley the chronological development of human
settlements from pre-historic to proto-historic may be seen in the contrast between
the unmoated or single-moated settlements in Surin and Roi Et provinces with the
double or triple moated settlements and the large settlements fortified by moats
and earth walls on the southern bank of the Mun river at Ban Pakiam, Ban Dong
Phong, Ban Khok Muang and Ban Thung Wang. Vallibhotama identifies a group
of moated settlements with highly developed planning and structural elements in
the Lam Phang Su area west of Lam Phlapphla at Ban Muang Su, Ban Saen Si,
Ban Yawuk, Ban Han Hai, Ban Muang Kwang and Muang Phutthai Song.
Whilst the latter two are fortified settlements, the larger size of Muang Phutthai
Song indicates a greater concentration of population. He traces a similar pattern
of development from simple unmoated or single moated settlements to double or
triple moated settlements in the Rasi Salai Plain, Sisaket Province where the more
complex settlements were established on the borders of the area near the bank of
the Mun River (such as Ban Lup Mok) and on the northern bank of the Chi River.
Bayard has also noted the presence of these centralizing trends in northeast
Thailand from about 400BC (1992: 25). There seems to be a pattern of
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development from the early sedentary settlements in the middle of the floodplain
where the use of the single moat was associated with water storage during the
long dry season, to the establishment of the double and triple moated settlements
geared to agricultural purposes amongst which the few with fortified earthworks,
moats and earthwalls indicate a defensive function for a centre providing
protection to the group of settlements in the area.
Thus, on the low terraces of the Korat Plateau the evidence for human
occupation over long periods of time in both unmoated and moated settlements is
extensive. The moated fortified settlements are of two types: one built on the site
of an older unmoated settlement; and the other on a new, previously unoccupied
site. The latter type is marked by the absence of potsherds, which are abundant in
the case of the former type, and represents a new urban centre built after the
selection of a suitable site. Vallibhotama therefore suggests that the sequence
from unmoated to moated fortified settlement represents a chronological
development from ban to muang - from village culture to urban centre. Across
the region are many settlements exhibiting traces of complex social and cultural
structures such as those at Ban Tat Thong, Yasothon Provice; Muang Talung,
Buriram, Muang Aem, Udon Thani, Muang Fa Daed, Yasothon Province; and
Muang Nakhon Champasi, Maha Sarakham. Within these fortified settlements,
an inner moat and clay wall separate the habitation zone from the cultivation
zone. Potsherds abound in the habitation zone. Further subdivision of these
zones is marked by various smaller moats and earth dykes. Such partitioned
settlements are considered to represent the most sophisticated form of human
settlement in the Korat basin in pre-Khmer, pre-Angkorian times (Vallibhotama,
1984: 127).
In similar vein, Welch has investigated the Phimai region of the Korat
Plateau, in the upper Mun River valley around the present day town of Phimai in
Nakhon Ratchasima Province. He posits that this area exhibits long term
continuity of settlement since late prehistoric times exploiting wet rice
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agricultural production and the need for protection against the annual floods.
During what he calls the Phimai period (500BC - 500AD), he states that
communities here developed a complex system of socio-political organization
involving control of regional and long distance trade-exchange networks. Such
complex political organization he defines as having at least two levels of
community decision making authority with the highest level integrating the lower
level communities into a single political unit, either as a chiefdom or a state.
The Korat Plateau exhibits just that cluster pattern of village settlements which
could lend itself to this two-tiered form of early political organization. The few
larger political centres are distinguished from the cluster of smaller villages in
terms of size, economic, administrative or religious role through which political
power may be exercised. Below the eleventh century Khmer temple complex at
Phimai the excavations of Solheim, Parker and Ayres revealed evidence of
continual human occupation from about 165BC across a settlement size of 30 to
40 hectares. Phimai seems to have been one of these significant political centres
even before it became a regional Khmer capital (Welch, 1990: 130). Between
Korat and Phimai, there seems to have been fourteen other similar centres larger,
and with more sophisticated socio-political organizational structures than the
autonomous village complex.
The northeast region is fortunate in being able to benefit from the broad
flood plain of the Mun River, 15km to 20 km wide, which has produced large
continuous stretches of land suitable for wet rice cultivation. Welch's excavations
revealed four cultural sequences here of which the earliest or Tamyae period falls
1000BC - 500BC; the second or Phimai period 500BC - 500AD; the third or early
historic period 500AD - 1300AD including the Khmer period 1000AD - 1300AD,
then the fourth or recent historic period, 1300AD to the present. Fifteen of
seventeen habitation sites belonged to the Phimai period. Phimai Black ceramics
were common to all these sites on an axis 25km to the northeast - 50km to the
southwest. Rice chaff found as a temper in pottery of the early Tamyae period
and the Phimai period is seen as evidence that rice was being harvested in these
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sequences and that the commitment to wet rice agriculture increased the need to
establish settlements on the higher ground secure from flooding, thus contributing
to the pattern of long term occupation. The higher population densities which
could be supported by this type of ecosystem, Welch suggests, could have
encouraged the trend to economic and political integration. Its location on major
trade routes close to the seasonally navigable Mun River system would have also
contributed to the development of regional and long distance trade. Bronson
(1976) has shown for example that the Phimai Black ceramics were traded as far
as Chansen in central Thailand and that bronze, beads, stone and some ceramics
were imported from outside the region. Such evidence however is still quite
limited. There is nevertheless evidence of rapid and widespread expansion of
complex socio-political settlements across the Korat Plateau in the Iron Age prior
to the development of states influenced by Indian and Chinese culture.
From the preceding discussion it will be seen that most of our evidence for
the prehistoric societies in Thailand comes from the material cultures. There is
little evidence of the scale of spiritual values which may have conditioned their
relationships to each other, and to the earth and sky. It is thought that the
megalithic spiritual culture which dominated much of Austronesia in the pre-
historic period may not have been widespread in Thailand. Whilst most
agricultural societies of the Neolithic, bronze and iron age cultures expressed their
spirituality through animism or acknowledgement of the beneficial interaction
with spirits of the forest, earth and sky, there is as yet tantalisingly little evidence
apart from what is identified as the 'shaman's grave' at Ban Kao in west Thailand
(Sorensen 1973, 86). Quaritch Wales on the other hand in a series of books has
written extensively on the cult of earth' and the 'cult of sky' purportedly present
amongst these pre- and proto-historic cultures. In the solar designs of the Dong
Son drums he suggests evidence of a spirituality focussing on a cult of the sky; in
the animal figurines found amongst the grave goods there may be evidence of a
cult of the earth which acknowledged the life-giving forces of the seasonal cycle
important to the sustenance regimes of the Neolithic communities. In the patterns
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of inhumation, whether in the 90 'boat burials' at Ban Kao and Ongbah, or infant
jar burials, or layered patterns suggesting groups of one family interred
contiguous to each other, there may be both elements of ancestor worship and
respect for familial kinship systems. Whilst the evidence from Egypt and
Mesopotamia on these issues is extensive and allows scholars to reconstruct a
convincing picture of the spiritual systems of these ancient civilizations, that from
the pre- and proto-historic communities of Thailand is yet scanty and does not
allow us to do more than make comparative inferences. As Sorensen has written,
following the earlier investigations of Quaritch Wales, the solar motif on the
tympanum of Heger I type Dong Son drums suggests that these probably served
religious purposes and were utilised in funerary rites in a cult of the dead.' In a
study undertaken by Vietnamese scholars, it has been suggested that the Dong
Son drums were primarily rain drums and thus part of the cults of earth and sky
fundamental to people who were agriculturalists body and soul. (Pham 1990:
271).
Another tantalising aspect of the spiritual life of prehistoric Thailand
occurs in the range of cave art occurring from the west in Kanchanaburi Province
to the northeast in Loei and Ubon Ratchathani, and south to Krabi Province. In
some of this cave art human figures are associated with fish and dolphins,
elephants and huge catfish. At Pha Taem, a series of friezes on the walls of caves
along the Mekong in Ubon Ratchathani province, shows figures of bulls, hand
impressions and huge catfish. Similar paintings occur at Khong Jiam and at Khao
Plara in Uthai Thani province, also in northeast Thailand, with etchings of the
bull, catfish and elephant again prominent. The cave art from Tham Pha Daeng
on the Mae Lamun Stream, Kanchanaburi province includes a sketch of a bull
together with figures apparently wearing feathered headdresses. In view of
Quartich Wales' and Basham's writings on the cult of the bull amongst early
animistic communities in prehistoric times in the Indus River valley of northwest
India, we might ask whether these items of cave art testify to its presence across
the prehistoric communities of Thailand in a similar timespan. Perhaps the
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lacunae in our knowledge only emphasize how much more research is needed to
substantiate what in essence is often only a theoretical framework. A fully
developed spiritual system with its attendant buildings, monuments, writing
system, inscriptions, rituals, administrative bureaucracy and literary heritage was
an inherent part of the transition from iron age muang to statehood.
Penny (1984: 156 -157) is surely enlightening in his view that the expansion of
relations with neighbouring states amongst the iron age muang in Thailand reflects the
basic stability and continuity of the village based culture. Penny argues that there was
no need to employ the elements of coercion or exploitation, since both land and water
resources were adequate for the needs of the village based culture. Cautioning against
drawing invalid comparisons with the emergence of states in other parts of the world,
Penny takes the view that cultural development amongst the iron age chiefdoms of
Thailand should be seen on its own merits as a reflection of the underlying prosperity
and rich subsistence resources of the region. It could be said that it was the very
prosperity of the area which provided the confidence to interact with external networks
and which in turn attracted those external influences to interact with the iron age muang.
Such interaction is usually inspired by need, or the urge to acquire items not readily
available locally, both exotic items which may be classed as luxury items desired by
emerging elite groups, and utilitarian items for household use, and raw materials for
manufacture. As shown by the archaeological evidence of the moated sites of the Mun
and Chi River valleys in northeast Thailand, spatial expansion in response to population
growth, and central place organisation across the Korat Plateau was occurring throughout
the first millennium BC, pre-dating evidence in the archaeological record of Indianized
heirarchical socio-political structures. Thus development of, or participation in,
interregional and international exchange networks should be seen as a consequence of
increasing socio-cultural complexity rather than an originating stimulus to such structural
changes. Long-distance exchange networks, after all, can exist without giving rise to
urbanized states with monumental superstructure, for example the Lapita cultural
complex of Melanesia, across which obsidian was transported at least as early as 5000BC
(Kirch, 1990: 26).
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PART II
Early State Formation in the proto-historic period: the cases of U-thong, Sri
Mahasod, Sri Thep and Sri Chanasa
The conference on Early Southeast Asia held in London in 1974 (Smith and
Watson, 1979) focussed on the value of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
approaches in enriching our understanding of the processes of socio-cultural change
during the pre- and proto-historic periods of Southeast Asian history. Archaeological
research since that time has contributed stimulating new perspectives on the
developments in agriculture, metallurgy and social complexity in the region. The
approaches taken by social and cultural anthropologists have led to re-examination and
re-interpretation of the few extant written sources and particularly of the concept of
'Indianization' of Southeast Asia and the role played by the ancient maritime and overland
trade networks in the transition from 'chiefdoms' to sophisticated, urbanized 'states.'
While the early polities of mainland Southeast Asia may be seen as links in the series of
international and interregional exchange networks stretching from the Mediterranean
world to Han China (Glover, 1989) concern has been to challenge the view that the
region was merely a trans-shipment point for foreign merchants (Wang Gungwu,
1989:xvi). A closely related line of scholarly research has focussed on the nature of
indigenous states, how they evolved from the prehistoric socio-cultural complexes of the
region, and how different their political and social dynamics were from the picture
presented in the Chinese dynastic histories which described these polities in terms of the
Chinese structural experience. As Wang Gungwu has stated, no Southeast Asian polity,
statue or monument is unmistakably Indian (1989, xvi). Greater recognition is now given
to local, indigenous, political and cultural dynamics. Similarly, the role of early maritime
trade is weighed against the cultural exchanges effected across the ancient overland trade
routes. The overland Silk Route and the maritime Spice and Silk Route were the
communications and transportation networks across which flowed the new ideas,
technologies, soldiers, sailors, merchants, craftsmen and tradesmen, politicians and
religious missionaries as well as the luxury products of forest, field and mine between
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east and west. Nor were these luxury goods the only items of trade; there is clear
evidence that much of the ancient trade across the early maritime networks was in bulk
goods - grains, teak, and minerals (Asthana, 1947; Adams, 1974; Ratnagar, 1981; Casson,
1984; Edens, 1992).
Above all, these famous trading networks came into being and were maintained
in response to the requirements of the indigenous polities, both east and west, which
formed the markets and production points giving the networks their justification for
being. Without such polities the networks would have ceased to function as happened
during periods of political upheaval. The sum of the results of this scholarly research
has underpinned the recognition that Southeast Asia has an historical unity of its own,
distinct from both Indianization and Sinicization. More importantly, it has shown that
Southeast Asia has always been part of the continuum of communications east and west,
pre-dating Augustan Rome and Han China, and in its linkages hearkening back to the
early empires of Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt and the Anatolian Plateau, Persia,
the Hittites and Phoenicians, the Minoan, Mycenaean and Dorian cultures of Ancient
Greece, the Indus Valley civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, and the early
Empires of Central Asia. The research of scholars in many disciplines has conclusively
shown that just as there was probably no one moment when agriculture was invented,
so too the initiative to interact with neighbouring groups and to exchange commodities,
ideas, and technologies over both water and land routes was not delineated by any one
moment in time. There is ample evidence that by the third millennium BC, there were
well-established trading networks, both interregional and international, operating within
and across the expanding centres of civilization from the Mediterranean-Middle East
world, to the Southeast Asian-Chinese-Austronesian-Pacific world. These built on much
older interaction networks both by land and sea developed since man learnt to move his
wares by donkey overland, or across water on hollowed out logs or reed boats (Casson,
1971: 3 10). It would be inaccurate therefore to consider the world system
interlinkages of Augustan Rome and Han China in the first century AD as having
suddenly originated at that time. They followed long-established, pre-existing patterns of
intercultural communication, what some scholars have argued was an interconnecting
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Gulf of Siam, in an area exposed to economic and cultural contact with external
influences by sea. Evidence for participation in interregional and international exchange
networks is shown by the foreign cultural elements mixed in with artefacts of local
origin. Thus Vallibhotama notes, amongst these foreign elements, cult objects, coins,
beads, earrings, combs and seals bearing symbolic designs. Amongst the locally made
objects were images of the Buddha and deities, coins and seals based on Indian designs,
fragments of terracotta and stucco decorations for long vanished religious structures.
Analysing these finds, Vallibhotama suggests that two localities amongst these
ancient settlements may have functioned as chief ports for contact with the international
exchange networks and as re-distribution centres to other settlements within the deltaic
regions. They are U Thong in the Tha Chin river basin in the west delta region, and Sri
Mahosod in the Bang Pakong river basin to the east. In addition to the presence of
foreign cultural objects indicating participation in the long distance trade network, east
and west, both sites are said to exhibit distinct characteristics of urbanization showing
development from the pre-historic chiefdom status. These traits are the number of
religious monuments and buildings, irrigation and transportation networks, fortifications,
and satellite communities within a 5 - 10 kilometre radius from the centre, thus
suggesting a substantial population deployed around the main centre. Vallibhotama
believes that most of the finds are contemporaneous with those at Oc Eo in Vietnam and
Beikthano in Myanmar, thus dating them to between the second and sixth century AD
and that these centres represent the earliest 'states' that ever developed in Central
Thailand (Vallibhotama,1984 : 123 - 128). They exhibited the proliferation of symbolic,
ritualized objects of individual social position and power which DeMarrais et als identify
as the materialized ideology of emerging state level society (DeMarrais et als, 1996: 17
23).
In addition to U Thong and Sri Mahasod, Vallibhotama has identified another
four large moated settlements in the major river basins of Thailand. They are Nakhon
Chaisri in the lower Tha Chin, Kubua in the Mae Klong, Lavo or Lopburi on the eastern
bank of the Lop Buri River, and Sri Thep in the upper Pasak Valley. The first three had
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access to the sea by means of large waterways connected to the Gulf of Thailand, while
Sri Thep on the overland route connecting the Central Plain with the Korat Plateau in
northeast Thailand may have been the inland junction for the network. Vallibhotama
(1989, 1992) has noted the cultural differences in these centres: those in the west show
signs of having embraced Buddhism whilst those in the east exhibit Hindu cultural
remains. The difference in belief systems is equated with a difference in political entity.
Thus Vallibhotama (and also Dhida Saraya, see below) rejects the hypothesis that
Central Thailand's earliest political centre was at Nathon Pathom and later at Lop Buri.
By studying the cultural evidence such as burial mounds, Buddhist monuments and
artefacts, Vallibhotama concluded that a socio-economic network existed amongst the
settlements in the same river basins and that larger centres were able to extend their
cultural network far beyond their own river basins to other regions. Thus in separating
art style from political entity and surveying the size and distribution of ancient
settlements in the Chao Phraya delta of Central Thailand at the beginning of the Christian
Era, Vallibhotama (1989) discounts the view that there was a single integrated state
called Dvaravati. Rather there were at least two rival city states identified as U Thong in
the west, a centre which embraced Buddhism, and Sri Mahosod in the east, a centre
which embraced Hinduism. These were formed from heirarchies of village, town and
city grouped together in their own river basins with the largest settlement as the centre.
Evidence of the participation of mainland Southeast Asian polities in the long
distance international exchange network first came from the work of Louis Malleret who,
in 1942 - 44, unearthed archaeological remains at another delta port site at Oc-eo in the
lower Mekong River basin. Here Malleret uncovered two Roman medallions, one minted
during the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138 - 152), and another in the reign one of his
successors, Marcus Aurelius ( AD 161 - 180), as well as a Chinese mirror of the Later
Han dynasty of the same vintage, Iranian coinage, Indian inspired jewellery, gold rings
and merchant seals, and tin amulets with symbols of Vishnu and Siva. Amongst a
wealth of material culture, the finds led scholars to conclude that Oc-eo was a major
entrepot in an international trading network which linked Ancient Rome and India with
Han China. Oc-eo was well placed to function as a gateway for goods traded up and
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down the Mekong basin ( Higham, 1989: 254). In this way it would have been linked
with the interregional networks across the Korat Plateau of northeast Thailand and
through them to Sri Thep in the Pasak River basin, and thence to the emerging
contemporaneous polities of the Central Chao Phraya basin investigated by
Vallibhotama, U Thong and Sri Mahosod.
Vallibhotama made a significant distinction between these two centres. He
suggests that U Thong emerged from an outcrop of earlier settlements dating from the
second half of the first millenium BC, the archaeological remains of which testify to
cultural influence from overseas at this time during a notably pre-Buddhist phase of its
cultural development. Upstream from U Thong, the number of pre- and proto-historic
settlements in the Tha Chin valley increases as far as Suphanburi, Singburi and Chainat
in the upper reaches of the valley. The archaeological remains indicated that U Thong
was the most densely populated of the settlements. It may have been the distribution
centre for goods of economic and ritualistic, religious and symbolic value to the centres
upstream (Vallibhotama, 1992). Sri Mahasod, on the other hand, appears to have been a
newer centre having no prehistoric base. Situated in the Bang Pakong River valley to the
east, the intermediary role it played in trans-shipment of goods, trade and
communications with the hinterland centres towards the Cambodian lowlands in the east
allowed it to develop rapidly into an important urbanized centre in the region. It quickly
surpassed the inland regional prehistoric centres around Amphoe Phanat Nikom,
Chonburi, which appear not to have engaged in overseas economic and cultural contacts.
The distribution of imported cultural artifacts associated with U Thong and Sri Mahosod
- the beads, ear-rings, armlets, precious stones, jade, carnelian and coloured glass - and
the religious objects, terracotta and metal seals showing Hindu and Buddhist sacred
symbols indicate that by at least the first half of the first millennium AD these
settlements in the Chao Phraya valley were participating in the international and
interregional exchange networks linking them to the Middle East and India, Vietnam and
China. The Tha Chin and Bang Pakong rivers played a crucial distribution and
transportation role between the coastal regions and the upper riverine settlements co-
ordinating the interregional trading networks.
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Support for this view is also provided by Glover (1989) who has argued that such
cultural finds, like that of the famous Roman lamp found at Pong Tuk on the bank of
the Meklong River in west Thailand, are not the result of 'drift' or intermittent
transportation through reciprocal exchange networks over short distances as postulated by
Wheeler (1954: 206 - 7), but are evidence of participation in a system of regular
exchange links between Southeast Asia and India in this era. Glover cites the evidence
from excavations at Ban Don Ta Phet in Thailand in support of his views. Ban Don Ta
Phet, he states, provides the earliest and most extensive evidence of trading and cultural
links between this part of Southeast Asia and India. Such evidence includes a copper
coin of the Western Roman Emperor Victorinus (AD 268 - 70) which was minted at
Cologne and found at U-Thong in western Thailand, and which now resides in the Thai
National Museum; an Indian ivory comb from the moated settlement at Chansen in
Central Thailand excavated by Bronson and Dales and dated to between 1st and 3rd
centuries AD, now also in the Thai National Museum; Roman carnelian intaglio seals
from Khlong Thom, Krabi Province southern Thailand dated to 2nd century AD, one of
which portrays the Goddess Tyche (Fortuna), the other a pair of fighting cockerels; some
600 (out of 3,000) beads of semi-precious stones such as agate, carnelian, rock crystal
and jade found at Ban Don Ta Phet; a carved carnelian leaping lion pendant from Ban
Don Ta Phet which Glover (1989:28) considers a first century AD representation of the
Buddha, thus being one of the earliest Buddhist artefacts in this region. Taking into
account the evidence of all the material culture, Glover therefore agrees with
Vallibhotama and Saraya that by the first century AD this region was already part of the
ancient prehistoric international exchange networks linking east and west which extended
from the Mediterranean Sea to South China.
Wheatley drew attention to the fact that the great maritime trade route should be
seen more accurately as a series of trade routes across which no one group of merchants
operated from end to end, nor one class of merchandise was transported. On the western
end of the route, the bronze age merchants of the Indus Valley civilization and those of
Sumeria gave way to the iron age Arab, Greek and Egyptian merchants. Indian Tamil
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merchants also travelled eastwards. After the withdrawal of the Greco-Roman merchants
around the end of the second century AD, these Indian Tamil seafarers continued to ply
their trade from the ports on the Coromandel coast of India across the Bay of Bengal to
the ports on the Thai/Malay Peninsula. On the eastern end of the route, the trade of the
Austronesian world and the South China seas at the beginning of the Christian era was
largely in the hands of various sea-faring peoples collectively known in the Chinese
records as the K`uen-luen (Wheatley, 1975: 231). These same people had plied the
sealanes of the Austronesian world since the Holocene and had ventured to as far away as
Madagascar.
On the Coromandel coast of southeastern India, excavations in 1945 at
Arikamedu, Ptolemy's Podouke, (also known as Virampatnam) by Sir Mortimer Wheelershowed that it too was an emporium similar to Barygaza (Pattabiramin, 1946: 9-13). The
archaeological remains of merchant residences, warehouses and harbor provide mute
testimony to the part it played in the east-west trade of the first century of the Christian
era. Here, between 23 96AD the merchants known as yavana, Greeks, in Indian
literature, gathered to meet the traders from Southeast Asia from whom they purchased
the cargoes of pepper, pearls, gems, muslins, tortoise shell, ivory and silk to ship back to
the Roman Orient. In return, theyavana merchants provided glass, vases, lamps, wine
and coined money. Pliny the Elder ( 23 79AD) laments the drain on Roman specie of
this trade. Amongst some 68 hoards of Roman coins found in India, some 57 occur in
south India, the majority of them from the time of Augustus (27BC 14AD) and Tiberius
(14 37AD). They were apparently used as bullion rather than currency, being weighed
out in exchange for goods (Hall 1985: 34). As long ago as 1885, Walter Elliot had
commented on the large number of Roman coins found with Chinese and Arab coins at
various places on the Coromandel Coast after every high wind, which he thought
indicated extensive commerce between China and the Red Sea (Pattabiramin, 1946: 42).
Greek was, in the first and second centuries AD, the language of commerce, in the
emporia on the east-west trade routes. Begley has re-assessed all the evidence and
concluded that Arikamedu was a significant commercial centre linking the coastal/inland
trade with the long distance international trade long before the Greco-Roman sailors
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appeared around the tip of Cape Cormorin. Moreover, it was not alone. Along the eastern
seaboard of India, facing the Bay of Bengal, further port sites have been identified in
association with river estuaries at Korkai, Kaveripattinam, Karaikadu, Vasavasamudram.
On the basis of the distribution of the distinctive ceramic Rouletted Ware first found at
Arikamedu, Begley suggests that there was a well-established trading and communication
network linking the entire east coast of India (Begley, 1983: 462) in the few centuries
prior to the Christian era.
Begley highlights the unique position of Arikamedu as a trading centre on the
southeast coast of India first settled during the Mauryan period of contact with South
India, which coordinated systematic trade between the ports on the Coromandel coast and
the West prior to the beginning of Indo-Roman trade in the first centuries AD. In a key
position along both the coastal trading network of the Coromandel coast, and the
international route linking the eastern seaboard of India, northwestern Sri Lanka, the
Malay Peninsula/southern Thailand and the Mediterranean world, Arikamedu
experienced an intensification of trade in the first centuries of the Christian era. Some 75
coin hoards of Roman denarii and aurei each of several hundred coins minted in the
reigns from Augustus to Nero were found in the Coimbatore region on the main inland
communication route linking the eastern and western coasts via the Ponnani valley.
Analysis of their spatial distribution led Begley to suggest that, contra Wheeler, there was
direct overseas trade from the Mediterranean world with Arikamedu even before the main
period of Roman commerce evident in Phases D, E, F and G. In agreement with
Wheeler,however, Begley believes that Arikamedu may have been a supply/redistribution
centre for other settlements on the eastern littoral and hinterland (Begley, 1983: 479
480).
From the various excavations, remains of this trade are evident in the 50 or so
sherds of Roman Arretine ware, fragments of Roman lamps, a crystal gem and perhaps a
stylus. Exports probably included semi-precious stones, shell bangles, worked ivories,
textiles, leather goods, spices, incense and other perishables. Did Arikamedu, even prior
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to the Christian era, have trading links eastward across the Bay of Bengal, to the ports on
the Malay Peninsula and China? Did the Tamil sailors make port in Takkola as indicated
by a Tamil inscription found by Lajonquiere (Pattabiramin, 1946: 43)? Was Arikamedus
demise caused by withdrawal of the overseas trade consequent on political upheavals in
the Roman-Mediterranean world, or fall in sea-levels affecting the harbors as happened to
Sating Pra and other ports on the Malay Peninsula, or both? Perhaps it is time to follow
up more closely on the observation of Sir Walter Elliot in 1885 that together with the
Roman coins there were many Chinese and Arabian pieces found along the Coromandel
coast at frequent intervals after every high wind (Pattabiramin, 1946: 42). It seems
certain for instance that much of Han Chinas silk trade with Imperial Rome was
conducted across the sea route via Kancipura (Conjeveram) in southeastern India. In
terms of the focus of this conference, it is important to note the celebrated passage in the
Han Shu, during the Yuan-shih period of Emperor Ping (1 6AD) when Wang Mang
was in power, the Chief Interpreter was sent on an Imperial trade mission along the
searoute to places identified as Sumatra, Thatung in lower Burma, Pagan, Ceylon, Pulau
Pisan on the southwestern end of the Malay Peninsula, taking gold and silk to exchange
for pearls, beryl, curious stones and foreign exotic items. We are told that the trading
boats of the barbarians which carried them from one place to another were also engaged
in trade as well as in rapacity making the venture very dangerous. It took several years
to return to China. They brought back large pearls almost two inches in circumference.
The inclusion of Thatung is significant in view of Professor Aung-Thwins research that
no Chinese source includes reference to an independent kingdom or polity in Lower
Burma before the very late thirteenth century (Aung-Thwin 2005: 52). It is not certain
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process, thus proving that the bead industry was local, and not imported from the West.
The fragments of glass uncovered even in Casals excavation suggest that the lada
process was used throughout the occupation of Arikamedu. Different chemical additives
were used to produce various colours. Thus soda was used at Arikamedu in making the
red glass beads; potash for other colours (Francis, 1990: 6). The most common
Arikamedu bead was a monochrome drawn bead less than 6mm in diameter. Some glass
beads were made by the minor technique of being ground and perforated, unfinished
examples of which have been found at Arikamedu indicating local production.
Significantly, such beads are known from Ban Don Ta Phet, Thailand with a date of early
fourth century BC, Mantai, Sri Lanka in the late first millennium AD, Nishapur, Iran in
the early Islamic period and Uyaw Cave in The Philippines which is about the same
period as Arikamedu (Francis, 1991: 33). Such a distribution, particularly those from
Ban Don Ta Phet and Uyaw Cave, would suggest trading linkages eastwards of these
beads. Indo-Pacific beads have been found at seven sites in Southeast Asia where they
were manufactured as proven by the evidence of diagnostic wasters. These sites are
Mantai, Sri Lanka, Oc-eo, Vietnam, Klong Thom, Sating Pra and Takua Pa, southern
Thailand, and Kuala Selingsing and Sungai Mas, Malaysia. Of these, Klong Thom, Oc-
eo and Mantai had links with Arikamedu (Francis, 1991: 34), and may all have been
established in the first to second century AD. Francis suggests that Tamil bead makers
from Arikamedu may have settled at these sites after Arikamedu itself was abandoned.
Not only did they trade with each other, but also each was among the first urban centres
in their region; each was a major port having Roman, Persian and Chinese imports. Each
is identified with Roman emporia in Ptolemys Geographia: Arikamedu with Poduke;
Mantai with Modutti; Oc-eo with Kattigara, and Klong Thom with Takkola (Gerinis
identification of Takkola with Takua Pa is no longer considered valid). Francis considers
that as each site was abandoned, the beadmakers moved on, those from Oc-eo to Sating
Pra then to Takua Pa, those of Klong Thom to Kuala Selingsing then to Sungai Mas
(Francis, 1991:34 - 35). By the tenth century when the Cholas overran Mantai, the
beadmaking industry was in difficulties, and if the descendants of the beadmakers moved
back to India, possibly to Nagapattinam, there is as yet no confirmed archaeological
evidence.
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There is another interesting link between Arikamedu and Ban Don Ta Phet in that
Arikamedu is among the earliest sites where the use of double tipped diamond drills is
recorded for use in perforating stone beads, whilst this practice is also documented for
Ban Don Ta Phet dating from the fourth century BC (Glover, 1989:21). Francis has
pointed out that all stone beads manufactured at Arikamedu were bored with this type of
drill, except those bored from only one side. Diamonds from India were sent to Rome
and China during the heyday of Arikamedu (Francis, 1991: 38). Thus it is believed that
Arikamedu was a major lapidary centre exporting its products east as well as west.
Amongst its products were the sought after onyx, used to make cameos at this period in
Rome, red glass, collar beads, and folded beads. Possibly different guilds or social
groups specialized in different types of beads. Francis concludes that it is no longer
valid to consider Arikamedu merely an Indo-Roman trading station, or to assess its
contribution to the world system merely in terms of its linkages to the Mediterranean
world. Its pioneering beadmaking production techniques lived on at other sites in
Southeast Asia long after Arikamedu itself had been abandoned, which strongly suggests
that Arikamedu looked east far more than it looked west (Francis, 1991: 40).
The part Arikamedu played in the process of state formation in Southeast Asia is
only just coming to light as research on the Indo-Pacific beads is able to provide new
insights into the socio-economic relations of those early urban centres engaged in this
industry. Indo-Pacific beads were made for some two thousand years. The two types
the drawn bead cut from glass tubes and the wound bead made by twirling hot glass
around a mandrel are widespread throughout Southeast Asia, southern China, Korea,
Japan, southern India and Sri Lanka, but are less common in the Persian Gulf and
northern India (Francis, 1990(a): 1). First made at Arikamedu, some 50,000 beads and
wasters now in the Pondicherry museum testify to the importance of this industry for
Arikamedu (250BC 200AD) which was making beads at least two hundred years before
the first Greco-Roman traders appeared, and continued to do so for more than a century
after their departure. This was a century or more before the invention of the blow-pipe
in the western Mediterranean (Francis, 1990(a): 3). Thus it is important to keep the
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notion of the Roman emporium in perspective. The group of Mediterranean merchants
trading to Arikamedu, were engaged in personal entrepreneurial activities; they were not
the spearhead of empire. They were essentially more important to themselves than to the
locals on whose tolerance they relied for continuance of their activities. In such Treaty
Ports as Charlesworth suggested they were, the Yavana (Greek) merchants were allowed
to reside and transact business (Charlesworth, 1951: 142). When civil strife in Rome
during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161 180AD) led to reduced capacity to undertake
eastern trading ventures, most of the emporia were abandoned. Of greater importance
and longer lived, were Arikamedus trading relations eastward with Oc-eo, Mantai, and
Klong Thom. Not only were these early urban centres in their respective regions from
the first to at least the sixth centuries AD, but also each was the site of a Greco-Roman
emporium. At Mantai, Ptolemys Modutti emporium, Arab and Persian merchants from
the west could meet those of the east, each brought by the opposite monsoon winds, and
relying on the monsoon reversal to guide their homeward journeys. Here beads made in
Arikamedu have been found, as they have in Klong Thom, Krabi Province, southern
Thailand, and at Oc-eo, the port of Funan, which was occupied in the second to sixth
centuries AD. Klong Thom would have been a centre for the trans-isthmus trade,
comparable to Mantai, whilst Oc-eo, Ptolemys Kattigara, has been called the chief relay
port in the Malay-Chinese trade (Francis, 1990(a): 5). The four ports shared a common
technology in the art of Indo-Pacific beadmaking, a technology which continued at the
Southeast Asian centres for some centuries after Arikamedu was abandoned.
Thus it could be said the interregional, and indeed intraregional, trading networks
arose from, and continued to meet, the needs of emerging urbanized states both long
before the Pax Romana intensified commercial activity across the sealanes from the
Mediterranean to the China sea, and long after political crises in Rome saw the
withdrawal of the Greco-Roman merchants from the trading entrepots of Southeast Asia.
Their withdrawal did not mean that the world trading system ceased. Their withdrawal
may have been barely a minor ripple across the system as the Arab, Middle Eastern,
Indian, Kuen Lun and Chinese merchants continued their ancient seafaring commerce.
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PART III
The Funan, Chen-la, Lin-yi, Dvaravati Dynamic
Chinese interest in the southern sea route to the west increased during times when
hostile activity in Central Asia cut their access to goods coming across the overland Silk
Routes. From the mission of Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, sent by the Wu Emperor in
about AD 245 250 to investigate the possible opening of a maritime silk route between
China and Rome (Higham, 2001: 24) has come a description of a state of Funan located
in the Mekong Delta whose port was Oc-Eo and whose capital, it was once thought was
Vyadhapura, the City of the Hunter (Siva) just south of present day Phnom Penh
(Ferrand, 1904: 153, Rogers, 1996:63, Higham, 1989: 247), which is derived
linguistically from the old Khmer word, bnam or mountain. The kings of Funan, took as
their royal title King of the Mountain. (Coedes, 1975: 36). However, Vickery (1998:
18) supported by Higham (2001) has disputed this view, and considers that Angkor
Borei, linked by canal to Oc Eo, has stronger claims to being the central place of Funan.
Here the remains of an iron age cemetery underlying habitation sites which utilized an
orange pottery, indicate that the site was occupied from at least the fourth century BC up
until the sixth century AD of the Funan polity (and even into the later Angkor period).
Other archaeological remains indicate that there was a series of trading communities,
such as those at Go Hang and Noen U-Loke, in the hinterland and Mekong Delta, which
engaged in international trade towards the end of the first millennium BC. Their
interconnection by means of a network of canals providing the transportation system for
the trading goods may be a sign that Funan was one political entity (Higham, 2001: 34).
The geographical extent of the maritime trading polity, Funan, is thought to have
reached the lower Chao Phraya valley to U-thong, the Malay Peninsula and perhaps even
to lower Burma, based on a mainly Mon-Khmer population. How far into the valleys of
the Mun-Chi rivers of northeast Thailand did it extend? Was Funans military activity
responsible for the termination of the 4,000 year old Ban Chiang culture in northeast
Thailand, perhaps deporting the population to other centres in Funan itself? Kang Tai
describes a polity whose maritime commerce was backed by military conquest, whose
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Phraya and the Andaman Sea. In the anthropological approach of Johnson and Earle on
the evolution of human societies, in Funan cultural identification and economic
interdependence superseded biological bonding to dramatically change the fiber of social
cohesion. Whilst at the geographical periphery of the state actual control would be
dubious given the difficulties of travel and communication, yet at the centre, the
emergence of special interest groups, different occupational classes, engaged in the
ceremonial legitimizing of social inequality supported the growth of a state religion, state
bureaucracy and military force (Johnson and Earle, 1987). By the early seventh century,
according to the Sui Shu the state of Funan had some 30 ceremonial and administrative
centres whose names ended with pura (city) with populations of around 3,000 adults
(Wheatley, 1983: 126 127).
Funans ceremonial legitimizing is evident in its origin myth identifying a certain
Kaundinya, an Indian, who around the end of the 1st
century AD allegedly married a
local princess to establish a ruling elite. The Chinese records of the Liang dynasty
(written in the 7th
century AD) state that Kaundinya gave his male descendants control of
seven dependent settlements, perhaps indicating development of the concept of a
centralized authority structure in the bureaucratic record. George Coedes has pointed out
that the mythical event onto which the first century AD historical events were grafted is
identical with that of the Pallava kings of Kanchi in southern India (Coedes, 1975: 38).
Further Chinese missions took place in 285 287AD suggesting that Funan was a place
of interest to the Chinese rulers. Funan is said to have sent an embassy to China itself
following the visit of Kang Tai and Zhu Ying. From the Chinese records we also gain
a picture of dynastic friction, assassinations, takeovers and military expeditions. One
Funanese leader known to the Chinese as Fan Shih-man mounted raids against his
neighbours, then undertook a waterborne expedition to subdue some ten chiefs along the
shores of the Gulf of Siam. Fan Shih-mans son in turn was displaced by another
successful military leader, Fan Chun, the son of his fathers sister. It is likely, as Vickery
(1998) has suggested, that here we see an example of the older matrilineal inheritance
structure asserting itself against an attempt to impose patrilineal descent in accordance
with the new Hinduistic legitimising rituals. The records state that the last king of Funan,
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known as Rudravarman, had to flee his capital after its investment by neighbouring
Chenla. Briggs considers that Funan may have lingered on from another site in the south
of the delta, possibly Oc-Eo, until 627AD, although this view is not widely held.
This loosely knit empire as Quaritch Wales (1965: 10) envisaged Funan to be,
benefitted economically from its position on the international trade routes, and fostered
good international relations with both India and China. Thus in 240AD an embassy is
said to have been sent to a king in the Ganges valley in India who responded with an
embassy bringing four horses from the Indo-Scythian region. A Chinese embassy in Fu-
nan at the time confirms the gift of the horses from Central Asia, discusses Funans trade
and states that oar-propelled boats were built in Funan for the inland river trade. In
268AD Funan and Lin-yi, a forerunner of Champa on the coast of Vietnam, sent tribute
missions to negotiate with the Chin Emperor (Wang Gungwu, 1998: 34) and were able to
take advantage of the resurgent seatrade after 280AD to send further missions to meet the
Chinese demand for luxury goods, kingfisher feathers, tortoise shells, corals and pearls in
the northern cities of the empire. In 284 287AD they joined with some twenty other
polities of the Nanhai to send tribute and resume normal trade relations with China
(Wang Gungwu,1998: 34). They benefited economically from this resurgent trade which
continued until 300AD when renewed turmoil in northern China lost the Empire its
wealthiest cities in the northern territories. Turmoil in southern China after 322AD
coincided with a significant reduction in trade missions from the Nanhai, only three being
recorded between 300 and 400AD, all from Lin-yi.
Wang Gungwu suggests that the ships used for these missions may have been
Funanese ships, described by Kang Tai as eight Chinese feet long and six feet broad,
with bows and stern like fish, the large ones able to carry one hundred men with each
man carrying a long or short oar or a boat pole. However, Fan Chans envoy to Bengal,
sailed in an Indian ship up the Ganges. A Chinese record from the end of the third
century AD describes the ships of men from foreign lands as being over 200 feet long,
twenty to thirty feet high above the water level and holding 600 to 700 men with cargo
capacity of 10,000 ho (about 10 pecks by the Chinese measure). The same source states
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that the men from beyond our frontiers use four sails for their ships, connected to each
other from bow to stern; . . . when they sail, they do not avoid strong winds and violent
waves, and therefore can travel very swiftly. Wang Gungwu considers that these were
probably Indian ships sailing directly between China and India, or Indian-built ships of
the archipelago trading with China. Their performance was contrasted with the slower
and smaller Yueh and Chinese ships (Wang Gungwu, 1998: 38-39).
Kang Tais book mentions some ten states in Siam, Burma, the Peninsula and
other islands in the Archipelago with which trade was maintained until early Chin times.
In Funan he had met Chen Sung, from North India, on his mission to Funan. Whilst at
this time, China had direct trade with Ta-chin through South India, Ceylon, the
Peninsula states and Funan, in Kang Tais time that there was no direct trade with North
India (Wang Gungwu, 1998: 39). Wolters suggested that the real reason the Wu
government sent Kang Tai and Chu Ying to Funan was to learn more of Funans trade
with India and western Asia, that it was Funans links with the west, rather than Funan
itself, that interested the Chinese (Wolters, 1967: 38). Wolters notes the few references
in the Chinese texts of the third century AD to the products of Southeast Asia. He
considers that it was the luxury goods from western Asia available in Funans ports
which the Wu emperor wanted to secure for trans-shipment to the ports of southern
China. In the wake of the partition of Han China in the early third century, the northern
Wei dynasty had control of the overland trade route through Turkestan, thus denying the
Wu access to the normal supplies of these luxury items (Wolters, 1967: 39 40). In 226
and 284AD, Ta-chin sent missions to China, the first to the newly established kingdom
of Wu, the second after the reunfication of China under the Chin emperor. The timing
implies that the missions were seeking assurance from the new authorities of the
continuance of trade and protection of merchants at Chinese ports (Wang Gungwu, 1998:
40). However, the trade with Ta-chin was smaller than that with Funan and Lin-yi
whose ruler, Fan Wen, travelled with a merchant mission to China in 313 316AD and
brought back to Lin-yi knowledge of Chinese court architecture, fort building, town
planning and manufacture of tools and weapons. In the fourth century, Lin-yi is said to
have brought valuable goods to China by sea, a situation which continued until 347AD,
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when Fan Wens conquest of Jih-nan initiated a period of fourteen years of warfare. The
sea trade from Tongking was disrupted, and merchants passed directly to Canton instead.
During Wu times, Funan was the most important state between China and India, master
of the Gulf of Siam and all the lands of Cochin China to the Peninsula.
The entrepots on the Peninsula, Funanese dependencies, grew wealthy and
important on the basis of their location on the international trade route. Whether
traversing the Isthmian states such as Tien-sun (Tenasserim) which came under Funan
hegemony in the second century AD, or sailing directly to India through the Straits of
Malacca after calling into the Funanese port of Chu-li at the southern end of the
Peninsula, the east-west trade passed through Funanese territory. Funans importance to
the Chinese was undoubted. At the Chinese