An Archaeobotanical Analysis of Four Prehistoric Central Thai Sites: the Preliminary Results

Summary

Thailand is a relatively new frontier for archaeobotanists, having suffered in the past from a shortage of archaeobotanical research. While archaeologists in Southeast Asia have begun to chart when and how rice and millet agriculture developed and spread, a clear picture of prehistoric agriculture in central Thailand has yet to emerge. This paper describes some preliminary results from a series of sites that have been occupied from ca. 2500 BCE to 500 CE. These are Non Pa Wai, Non Mak La, and Nil Kham Haeng, as well as data from a new site, Phromthin Tai. Climate has been implicated as a factor behind differential patterns in plant use across the time period and area examined. We examine these patterns in the light of new archaeobotanical data as well as an improved understanding of ecological and climatic boundaries.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Archaeoethnobotany and Household Contexts

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