In 1966, while still a student of sociology at Harvard, Steve Young quite literally stumbled onto one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th Century. The son of a former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, Mr. Young was walking through the village of Ban Chiang in northeastern Thailand when he tripped over a kapok tree root and fell into history. There, protruding from the ground in front of him, was the lip of a clay pot — the first of dozens he noticed as mere circles in the dirt. Young's historical find was literally surfacing of its own accord, brought to light by erosion in the area.

The locals were less than impressed. For over a hundred years they had been finding pots, potsherds, beads, metal, animal and even human bones every time they dug in the ground around their village. Not realizing the significance of their discoveries, they simply ignored them. But the cache of buff-colored pots decorated with their bright red designs was just the beginning of a remarkable discovery that would turn a number of long-held theories upside-down.

The first thing our young hero noticed was that these pots were unglazed, which led him to believe he had found relics of a truly ancient civilization. Digging up a few of the pots, he turned them over to the Fine Arts Department of Thailand, which eventually sent them off to the University of Pennsylvania for thermoluminescence dating. The surprising results proved these pots were ancient indeed with a carbon date of 3600 BCE.

Convinced that here was a find worthy of attention, further excavations were undertaken. More pots, skeletons, and bronze and iron tools and utensils were discovered. Soon digging began in earnest with two major excavations mounted in the mid-seventies, the first in 1974. Within two years, the excavators had uncovered 126 human skeletons and 18 tons of artifacts. The burial ground at Ban Chiang proved to consist of seven layers, the lowest of which dated back to 3600 BCE. It was at this level that history dropped its bombshell — a bronze spearhead lying next to a human skeleton, a second skeleton nearby wearing bronze anklets, and a third with bronze bracelets.

For decades historians have called the Middle East the "Cradle of Civilization." The accepted wisdom has been that writing, cities, the wheel, and the metallurgical discovery of bronze first arose in the so-called "Fertile Crescent," the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The Bronze Age, it was agreed, had lasted from about 2500 BCE to about 1000 BCE, and in those fifteen hundred years humans developed trade, metallurgy, and mining. Furthermore, Southeast Asia had always been considered a cultural backwater of India and China. Yet here was ancient evidence that boldly put both those theories in doubt.

Specimens were sent for testing and again were dated to approximately 3600 BCE — over a thousand years older than Mesopotamian bronzes; fifteen hundred years older than their Chinese counterparts. Young's find was proof of human settlements in this region 600 years before the domestication of sheep, cattle, and water buffalo in China. Proof of a fully developed bronze metallurgy comparable to the Shang Dynasty in China, but without the extensive weaponry that is usually associated with other Bronze Age sites. Prehistoric residents of this region, it appears, mastered bronze working and from there moved on to pottery and glass beads. By 2000 BCE, they had begun to manufacture iron.

And as if all this wasn't enough, the Bronze Age had always been considered an age of kings and armies, of colossal temples and walled cities. Yet here the Bronze Age arrived not only earlier, but more gently. "Archaeologists are still trying to digest the presence of a sophisticated technology in a society with little social hierarchy, and one that seems unwarlike no less."

References:

Ban Chiang Project. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Hawaii. www2.soc.hawaii.edu/css/anth/projects/banchiang/banchiang.htm

The Ban Chiang Project. 8 Jan 2002. The University of Pennsylvania. www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Asia/banchiang.shtml

Vernon, William. The Crucibles of Ban Chiang. Dept. of Geology, Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally published in Ban Chiang Update, Issue #7, Spring/Summer 1998. www.sas.upenn.edu/~csherman/crucible.htm

Photo by M. Pietrusewsky