Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:07:10.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Iron and cloth across the Bay of Bengal: new data from Tha Kae, central Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Judith Cameron
Judith Cameron*
Affiliation:
College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

An important group of spindle whorls found at Tha Kae in Thailand carries traces suggesting the use of iron spindles, and includes an unusual type of whorl shaped like a door knob. The author explores the implied contacts reaching into south China, but is also able to add a probable link with India in the early first millennium AD, well in advance of the better known Dvaravati period (sixth–thirteenth centuries AD).

Keywords

Southeast AsiaIndiaIron Agefirst millennium ADtextile technologycraftinteraction
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 328 , June 2011 , pp. 559 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barber, E.J.W. 1991. Prehistoric textiles: the development of cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bellina, B. & Glover, I. C. 2004. The archaeology of early contacts with India and the Mediterranean world from the fourth century BC to the fourth century AD, in Glover, I. C. & Bellwood, P. (ed.) Southeast Asia: from prehistory to history: 68–98. London: Routledge Curzon.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1997. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Honolulu (HI): University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. 2000. Asbestos cloth and elites in Southeast Asia. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 19:47–51.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. 2001. Textile technology and Austronesian dispersals, in Clark, G. R., Anderson, A. J. & Vunidilo, T. (ed.) The archaeology of Lapita dispersal in Oceania: papers from the fourth Lapita conference, June 2000, Canberra, Australia (Terra Australis 17): 177–83. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. 2002. Textile technology in the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Unpublished PhD dissertation, The Australian National University.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. 2010. The archaeological textiles from Ban Don Ta Phet in broader perspective, in Bellina, B.E.A., Bacus, E. A., Pryce, T. O. & Wisseman, J. Christie (ed.) 50 years of archaeology in Southeast Asia: essays in honour of IanGlover: 141–52. Bangkok: River Books.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. 2011. The spinning tools, in Higham, C.F.W. & Kijngam, A. (ed.) The origins of the civilizations of Angkor. Volume 5. The excavation of Ban Non Wat: the Bronze Age: 492–9 Bangkok: Fine Arts Department.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. Forthcoming. The spinning tools: evidence for technological transfer between Taiwan and the Philippines, in Bellwood, P. & Dizon, Eusebio (ed.) Archaeology in the Batanes Islands: the early movements of the Austronesian-speaking populations. Manila: National Museum of the Philippines.Google Scholar
Ciarla, R. 1992. The Thai-Italian Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project: preliminary results, in Glover, I. (ed.) Southeast Asian archaeology 1990: proceedings of the third conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists: 111–28. Hull: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Fuller, D. 2008. The spread of textile production and textile crops in India beyond the Harappan zone: an aspect of the emergence of craft specialization and systematic trade in Osada, T. & Uesugi, A. (ed.) Linguistics, archaeology and the human past in South Asia: 1–26. Kyoto: Indus Project, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature.Google Scholar
Glover, I. C. 1989. Early trade between India and Southeast Asia—a link in the development of a world trading system (Occasional Paper, University of Hull Centre for Southeast Asian Studies 16). Hull: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Cameron, J. 1990. Ban Don Ta Phet: the 1984-5 excavation, in Glover, I. C. & Glover, E. A. (ed.) South Asian archaeology: proceedings of the first conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists in western Europe (British Archaeological Reports international series 561): 139–84. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Higham, C.F.W. 1996. The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Higham, C.F.W. 2010. The Iron Age of Thailand: trends to complexity, in Bellina, B., Bacus, E. A., Pryce, T. O. & Wisseman Christie, J. (ed.) 50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast Asia: essays in honour of Ian Glover: 129–40. Bangkok: River Books.Google Scholar
Higham, C.F.W. & Lu, T.L.-D. 1998. The origins and dispersal of rice cultivation. Antiquity 72:867–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, D. 1988. Science and civilisation in China. Volume 5. Chemistry and chemical technology. Part 9: textile technology: spinning and reeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mårtensson, L., Andersson, E., Nosch, M-L., Batzer, A. 2005-2006. Technical report experimental archaeology. Part 1. Copenhagen: Danish National Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Mårtensson, L., Andersson, E., Nosch, M-L., Batzer, A. 2006. Technical report experimental archaeology. Part 2:1 flax. Copenhagen: Danish National Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Macauley, G. C. 1890. The History of Herodotus. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Moorti, U. 1994. Megalithic culture of south India: socio–economic perspective. Varanasi: Ganga Kaveri.Google Scholar
Moulherat, C. M., Tengber, M., Haquet, J-F. & Mille, B. 2002. First evidence of cotton at Neolithic Mehrgarh, Pakistan: analysis of mineralized fibres from a copper bead. Journal of Archaeological Science 29:1393–1401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajan, K. 1994. Archaeology of Tamilnadu (Kongu Country). Noida, District Ghaziabad: Book India.Google Scholar
Ray, H. P. 2003. The archaeology of seafaring in ancient South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rispoli, F. 1992. Preliminary report on the pottery of Tha Kae, Lopburi, central Thailand, in Glover, I. C. (ed.) Southeast Asian archaeology 1990: proceedings of the third Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists: 129–42. Hull: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar