Initiating discourse on the (multi?) directionality of the Mainland Southeast Asian Bronze Age transition

Thomas Oliver Pryce (1, 2)

1 PréTech - Préhistoire et Technologie
2 LAPA - UMR 3685 - Laboratoire Archéomatériaux et Prévision de l'Altération

Discourse on early Southeast Asian metallurgy has been dominated by theories on how and when the technology arrived from present-day China, with little to no discussion about how and when metallurgy dispersed within Southeast Asia. This situation is a logical result of how interest in prehistoric metallurgy and subsequent archaeometallurgical investigation has developed in the region, particularly with respect to dating controversies and major geographical data biases. In this paper I propose a new and testable mid-late 2nd to early-1st millennium BC south-to-north and partly maritime/up-river dispersion model that seeks to complement the extra-regional theories for metallurgy’s generally north-to-south terrestrial/down-river arrival in Mainland Southeast Asia.

Domaines: Matériaux

Thomas Oliver Pryce. Initiating discourse on the (multi?) directionality of the Mainland Southeast Asian Bronze Age transition. Ninth International Conference on the Beginings of the Use of Metals and Alloys, Oct 2017, Busan, South Korea. pp.160-175. ⟨cea-02368259⟩