​Environmental Archaeology of Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing in Ancient Thailand.

Summary

This paper will address the question of "What impact would cultivation, and possible domestication, of native and introduced fiber plants have on the local environment and people’s lives in prehistoric Thailand?" This study begins by considering artifacts such as spindle whorls but will also discuss what fiber plants we have evidence of? How many are native? Where do the introduced species come from and when do they first appear in Thailand? Moreover, as well as growing the fiber plants, it is noted that other environmental impacts would result from subsequent processing, including dyeing and weaving.

I argue that when considering the implications of agriculture, archaeologists often concentrate on the obvious crops (rice & millet for example), however, plant (and animal) products have clearly been important for reasons beyond subsistence. Thus, the larger aim of this paper is to broaden the conversation about human-environment relationships beyond subsistence practices to a wider social and cultural context.

This paper will consider evidence from the site of Ban Non Wat (c. 4000-1000 bp) in Northeast Thailand initially, but also consider evidence from across Southeast Asia.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Environmental Archaeological Approaches in Southeast Asia

Keywords

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