Ban Chiang bronze metallurgy
Metalurgia del bronce de Ban Chiang
- Date
- c. 1000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Ban Chiang, Udon Thani, Thailand
- Credited to
- Bronze Age communities of north-eastern Thailand
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Jewellery, points and tools cast in bivalve moulds, found in Ban Chiang graves alongside crucibles. It is the benchmark for the earliest metallurgy in Southeast Asia, supplied by mines such as Phu Lon.
It was proposed in the 1970s that it predated Mesopotamia (c. 3600 BCE), an idea now abandoned; current debate pits a long chronology (c. 2000 BCE) against a short one (c. 1000 BCE, Higham), with transmission probably from China.
What it led to
- the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia
- the region's Iron Age
- the tradition of bronze drums