Interaction, Change, and Ceramic Variation along Coastal Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand, AD 100-1500

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Coastal Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, Thailand, situated along Peninsular Thailand’s eastern facing South China Sea shore, was one of the many vibrant zones of interregional exchange and complexity growth in premodern maritime Southeast Asia. The region’s culture-history, settlement pattern, material culture, and international connections between AD 100 and 1500 have become points of archaeological interest in recent years. Research on its Hindu and Buddhist shrines has identified four distinct periods of local development, and the presence of northern and southern site clusters possibly displaying some political or cultural differentiation between the 5th and 11th centuries and heavier southern occupation after AD 1100. This paper discusses the results of a program of survey and excavation conducted in 2017 at three northern cluster and three southern cluster sites to help advance understanding of premodern coastal Nakhon Si Thammarat’s organizational development and external engagements. Specifically, it details efforts made to locate, collect, and define variation exhibited within the region’s local earthenware assemblages over time. This paper also attempts to interrogate what identified local ceramic patterns suggest about the organization and relations of daily life in premodern coastal Nakhon Si Thammarat and its place in local mobilization of external connection toward local development.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24682