Subsistence Changes and Community-based Craft Production in Prehistoric Central Thailand

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Between 1990-1994,with NSF funding, Dr. Vincent Pigott and colleagues excavated a cluster of three prehistoric copper producing sites in the small, ore-rich Khao Wong Prachan Valley in central Thailand. While occupation began ca. 2300 B.C., copper metallurgy did not appear until ca. 1500 B.C. at Non Pa Wai, Nil Kham Haeng and Non Mak La. With pending support from the NSF, Dr. Pigott and Co-PI Dr. Karen Mudar will oversee a program of analysis of the excavated organic remains from these three sites. The goal of the analytical program is to establish and assess the evidence for subsistence and subsistence change through analysis of the floral, faunal, and human skeletal remains. We seek to measure possible agricultural instability based on evidence for marginal soils, erratic rainfall, and drought potential. These analyses will be used to test our working model that links agricultural instability to the specialized production of copper in explaining the nature of economic and social relations within this prehistoric context.Massive copper production in the valley, but little indication of local use, suggests that copper was being produced for exchange, most probably for food. We argue that copper production was a strategy to buffer unpredictable shortfalls in local agriculture. Evidence suggests that environmental changes brought on by humans as well as agricultural instability occurred in concert with the intensification of copper production. The correlation of changes in both subsistence and production will contribute to an understanding of subsistence strategies that, we argue, motivated long-term, non-hierarchical, egalitarian, social and economic relations in this region.Dr. Mudar will conduct the analysis of all excavated faunal remains. Dr. Anagnostis Agelarakis (Adelphi University) will study the forty-eight human skeletons from the site of Non Mak La. Dr. Steven Weber (Washington State University, Vancouver) will study all excavated samples of botanical remains and Dr. Lisa Kealhofer (Santa Clara University) will study all samples taken for phytolith analysis including those from swamp corings. With the analytical results in hand, the PI's will examine potential links between craft specialization, unreliable agriculture, and egalitarian social organization; evidence which should provide an important alternative to current models. We anticipate that the results of this study will have a major impact on how archaeologists view craft production and social complexity.