H. James - Trade Culture and Society

7/31/2019 H. James - Trade Culture and Society

1/115


2/115

disintegration in the 6th

century AD. Some of them from the 6th

to 9th

centuries AD

formed a loose cultural federation based on Buddhist cultural practices known from the

Chinese dynastic records as To-lo-po-ti or Dvaravati; others exhibited Hinduised

cultural traits. Altogether, the sum of these researches demonstrates that the area was

populated by various peoples and cultures since pre-historic times; and that the Tai-Lao

peoples were probably inhabiting the regions north of the Mun-Chi basin since at least

early proto-historic times, whilst the Mon-Khmer peoples were settled in the areas south

of the Mun-Chi basin, on the Korat Plateau and around the head of the Gulf of Siam. The

transformation of these sub-urban regional traditions into urbanized 'states' or 'city states'

was once thought to have been a result of external forces such as 'Indianization' - the

transfer of Indian cultural influences either through immigrants/colonizers or traders in

the second century AD - or passively received stimuli from overseas trade networks. In

correcting this extreme view, scholars then adopted the position that the rise of social

complexity among the iron age muang came about as a result of both internal dynamics

and external cultural contacts. Both Vallibhotama ( 1984;1992 ) and Dhida Saraya

(1989; 1992) argue that this view fails to give adequate recognition to the system of

interdependent linkages underpinning the social, cultural, economic and political

interactions of the pre- and proto-historic settlements. Thus Dhida Saraya (1992) argues

that these pre-urban centres did not develop in isolation from each other; and that the

strength of their internal relationships not only conditioned their interactions with the

external influences, India and China, as well as the Middle East and the Austronesian

world, but also with the new political entities, Funan and Chenla in the Mekong Basin,

2


3/115

Lin-yi and Champa in central Vietnam, and the early city states of the Irrawaddy and

Chao Phraya basins.

In the first part of this paper I discuss the evidence for the patterns of early

hierarchic settlements in the Mun-Chi river basin and on the Korat Plateau. In the second

part I discuss the emergent city states of U-Thong, Sri Thep and Sri Chanasa; and in the

final section the Funan-Dvaravati dynamic as it interacted with the city states of the

Peninsula world, a world that belonged to both mainland and island Southeast Asia.

In taking this approach I am responding to the detailed examination of the concept

of an early Mon kingdom, Ramannyadesa, in Lower Burma by my colleague, Professor

Michael Aung-Thwin; and his finely argued thesis that this was a fifteenth century

construct; that the alleged conquest of a Mon kingdom at Thaton in 1057 by Aniruddha

of Pagan is legend and allegory; and that the conquest was an imagined event (Aung-

Thwin, 2005) which should be interpreted allegorically rather than literally.

Approaching the subject from the other end of the spectrum, I have examined the

evidence for Mon settlements, incipient states and city states, in a broad spectrum

from the North East of modern day Thailand to the western regions close to the present

day Myanmar border. This evidence seems consistent with Professor Aung-Thwins

research that Lower Burma in the proto-historic period, was not a significant locus of

Mon settlement. Accordingly, in this paper I refer to what Pamela Gutman has called the

westward drift of Mon culture from NE to SW in the period under examination.

Moreover, I would like to suggest the possibility that such westward drift should

3


4/115

perhaps not be seen in a linear mode; but in a circular one, that is, as the patterns of

settlement changed and economic interactions impacted on the sites in the central Chao

Phraya basin, there may have been a converse or return movement of cultural influences

and perhaps people as well from some of the central settlements towards those of the

northeast on the Korat Plateau.

PART 1

The early Moated Settlements in the Mun and Chi River Basins during the proto-

historic period

Here, I want to focus on the work of Elizabeth Moore, Srisak Vallibhotama and

Dhida Saraya. Elizabeth Moore (1990) identified more than 100 moated settlements in

the Mun and Chi River basins in Northeast Thailand using the collection of aerial

photographs in the Williams-Hunt collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.1

She

distinguished these sites from the rectangular temple enceintes and reservoirs of the later

Korat Khmer period of the 9th - 13th century AD which are considered to have a

primarily ceremonial purpose. On the contrary, the moated settlements of the Mun and

Chi River basins feature a moat-round-moat sectional profile, the base of each mound

being surrounded by a moat, and each moat bounded by one or two earthworks.

Vegetation grows around the crests of the earthworks which follow the natural contours

of the mound. Each moated site thus seems an integral and natural part of the local

topography. Far from having a ceremonial purpose, these moated earthworks appear to

be intended for the very utilitarian purpose of conserving water during the four month

hot dry season in the northeast (Moore, 1990: 201).

1These are some 5000 prints taken at the end of World War II of an area covering Burma, Thailand,

Singapore, Malaya and the Nicobar Islands and the Angkorian culture of Cambodia. Since they were

taken before the inroads of urban development disturbed the archaeological remains during the past

decades, they provide valuable evidence of a culturally cohesive complex in the area from present day

Nakorn Ratchasima to Sisaket during the period 1000BC - 1000AD.

4


5/115

Using both nearest neighbour and rank-size analysis on a core group of 80,

Moore concluded that the Mun Basin moated sites were chosen for their proximity to

local hydrology and terrain, and not by the constraints of internal political networks, or

external strategic or trade considerations. She suggests that they could be the result of a

long period of evolution in a well-populated region of relatively uniform natural

resources. The culture appears to have developed laterally rather than vertically with

new elements incorporated in, and co-existing with the old (Moore, 1986: 204). The

sites appear to be distributed at random and clustered on the Roi-Et soil group on land

moderately suited for wet rice cultivation. They range in area from one to sixty eight

hectares.

Based on a ground survey, Moore calculated that each moat had a minimum

depth of two metres of water when fully operational. She considers this estimate

consistent with evidence from inscriptions and Tai legends which record that the moats

were dug to the depth of an elephant. If a minimum of half of the available water were

sluiced into the surrounding fields, Moore calculated that each surface hectare of moat

area could provide one hectare metre - 10,000 cubic metres - of irrigation water. Thus an

average site with a 23 hectare mound surrounded by a 40 metre wide moat could provide

seven hectare metres or 70,000 cubic metres of irrigation water. If a minimum of 1.5

hectare metres of water is required for a dry-season crop, and the average yield per

hectare of broadcast rice is 1333.8 kg, assuming that average consumption is 179kg per

person per year, then Moore calculates that the average moat could produce 6,135

kilograms of rice, or sufficient for 34 adults for a year. Given the size and distribution

of the moated settlements, Moore suggests that the moats were used to irrigate rice fields

and that the increased water supply, even if not available throughout the entire year,

could have fostered agricultural development, new rice strains and occupational

differentiation. She notes that four occupational zones similar to those identified by

Adams (1966) in Mesopotamia, are identifiable in the area bounded by the Mun River

basin moated settlements. Thus the location of the moated sites in the midst of rice

fields suggests that the contiguous areas were habitually used for rice cultivation; the

elevated parts of the mound were used to support upland crops such as corn and tapioca

5


6/115


7/115

flora and fauna, and defence. Moore acknowledges that further identification of social

structures needs to await excavation of specific artefacts from the larger moated sites

which range up to 25 hectares; nevertheless it could be surmised that the construction of

the complex multi-tiered moats required a certain amount of cooperative labour

organisation, if not a definite form of social hierarchy. The extent and contiguity of the

moated sites in three groups in the Mun and Chi River basins - the Phimai group, the

Nakorn Ratchasima group and the Lam Plai Mat group - suggest the presence of

chiefdoms (Bayard, 1984: 163, Wheatley, 1983: 90) among these wet rice, metal making

socio-cultural complexes.

In a similar study of moated settlements on the floodplain of the lower Mun and Chi

River basins, Srisakra Vallibhotama identified 36 sites where iron smelting was an

integral part of the technocomplex. At a large moated settlement in Amphoe Chumpon

Buri, Surin province, an iron smelting site on the same mound as a burial ground was

found enabling stratigraphic excavation in which iron slag was found associated with

burial pots of a tradition dating back to about 1000BC. Vallibhotama is of the view that

iron-smelting here played a significant role in the evolution of socio-cultural

specialization among these settlements. Since the amount of iron smelting seems to

exceed local need, it has been suggested that it may have either been stimulated by, or

been part of, an economic network in which iron implements were traded to other

regions. Vallibhotama linked the development of the moated settlements in this area

with the rise of iron smelting technocomplexes (Vallibhotama, 1984: 125). In terms of

increasing social complexity, Vallibhotama further linked those moated settlements

which have double or triple moats with those of larger size fortified by moats and

earthworks such as the ones on the southern bank of the Mun river - Ban Pakiam, Ban

Dong Phong, Ban Khok Muang and Ban Thung Wang. In the Lam Phang Su area west

of Lam Phlapphla, he identifies another group of moated settlements, considered to

exhibit elements of sophisticated planning and structures, as fortified settlements of a

larger size indicating a greater concentration of population. These settlements are Ban

Muang Su, Ban Saen Si, Ban Yawuk, Ban Han Hai, Ban Muang Kwang and Muang

Phutthai Song. This group of settlements appears to be closely linked by a network of

7


8/115


9/115

millennium BC. Higham (1989) has shown that iron and lead sources are very

widespread in mainland Southeast Asia particularly in these river basins; laterite is also

widespread in northeast Thailand. Whilst iron-working was taking place in both China

and India from about 600BC and iron-casting had developed in China by 300BC, it is

not clear whether iron smelting in early Thailand was a local development, or in

response to earlier contacts. As Higham (1989) has asked, the question is whether the

iron-using centres in Southeast Asia had already developed skill in iron metallurgy

before the first Indian and Chinese contacts, or whether such initial contacts stimulated

their development. It is generally agreed, that whatever the details of the process, the

iron age muang of northeast Thailand, and the basins of the Chao Phraya and Ban

Pakong rivers give evidence of increasing socio-cultural complexity and possibly of a

move to centralization in adoption of an element of structured political organization.

Moore (1986) in her examination of the moated settlements in the Mun and Chi river

valleys considered that the larger moated sites such as that at Muang Fa Daed have

ceremonial and defensive functions quite distinct from that of the much smaller

hydraulically derived moated settlements of the earlier Bronze Age. It is clear that by at

least 500BC and possibly earlier, the pattern of life in the Bronze Age ban was being

substantially altered. Whether these far reaching changes to the social and cultural

context of prehistoric Thailand arose from increasing population pressures, doubted by

Bronson (1992); or from environmental changes requiring diversification in the way

resources were used; or from the need to organize and control labour resources rather

than land, it is certain that the end result was greater socio-political complexity leading,

by the first years of the Christian era, to the emergence of states and city states

participating in the east-west international and inter-regional trade networks.

Evidence of participation in such trade networks by the people of an iron age

muang comes from Ban Don Ta Phet in Kanchanaburi Provice, western Thailand where

a carnelian statuette of a leaping lion was among the grave goods and iron implements

unearthed by Ian Glover and Pisit Charoenwongsa during excavations undertaken in

1981 and 1984. The leaping carnelian lion is said to be evidence of exchange contact

with India, since the statuette was used to represent the Buddha at this time. Here in

9


10/115

1975 schoolchildren found a cache of potsherds and beads which under the direction of

Chin You-di of the Thai Fine Arts Department revealed a rich iron age site.

Inhumations on an east-west orientation similar to those at Nong Nor and Khok Phanom

Di revealed an extensive array of grave goods including pottery, bronzes, iron objects,

spindles, whorls and glass beads. The Glover-Charoenwongsa research identified five

different fabric types in a woven textile complex at Ban Don Ta Phet - hemp, the most

common material used; wild silk on a fragment of woven textile adhering to a bronze

vessel; cotton on a bone fragment. Whilst Kijngam and Higham (1980) had identified

silk at Ban Na Di, the identification of cotton at Ban Don Ta Phet is said, by Glover, to

be the earliest at a prehistoric site in this area. In his view, it reinforces his argument set

out in another context (Glover, 1989) for very early links with India, where cotton was

domesticated. Ban Don Ta Phet may have been a centre for textile craft weaving. In

the late period of Ban Chiang, contemporary with Ban Don Ta Phet, spindle whorls for

weaving appear, and again at Non Pa Kluay in northeast Thailand (Wilen 1989) in a

sequence spanning the Ban Don Ta Phet finds.

Together with the iron objects designed for agriculture, hunting and fishing - the

socketed tip for a hoe or spade, billhooks, spears and arrowheads (destroyed or bent

when interred with the dead) - were many decorative bronzes, bracelets, rings and bells,

bowls cast in the cire perdue method, none of which were connected with war or

conflict. The bronze industry was indicative of a people who enjoyed personal

decoration and had an artistic flair as demonstrated in the engraving of an elegant

coiffured woman on a bronze bowl from Ban Don Ta Phet.

The variety of beads - translucent with prismatic shapes, monochrome in a range

of colours - has led Glover to call this cache the largest corpus of antique glass beads in

Thailand. Over 3,000 were found mostly of glass, whilst some 600 were of carnelian,

agate, jade and rock crystal. He states that such beads were first made at a number of

sites on the southeastern coast of India, such as Arikamedu. By the beginning of the

Christian era they were also being made at sites in Southeast Asia. One of these at

Khuan Lukpad in Krabi Province on the west coast of southern Thailand has been dated

10


11/115

by Bennet Bronson to at least 500AD. He identifies it as an industrial centre specialised

in the working of tin, semi-precious stones and glass. Bronson (1990) states that the

glass working techniques here in a sparsely populated and isolated area, are the earliest

examples of this particular type of technology yet found in Southeast Asia. The site is

abundant in industrial refuse, but not rich in trade goods indicating perhaps that it

serviced domestic or interregional requirements; it was a manufacturing centre, not a

trade entrepot. Bronson (1990: 213) considers the Khuan Lukpad industrial complex

arose to meet the needs of the rapid population expansion and economic growth which

occurred across the region in the early Christian era.

The Khuan Lukpad site revealed much metallurgical slag from tin smelting

together with pieces of jewellery, rolled tin strips and flat cake-shaped ingots. Bronson

states that it is probably the earliest tin smelting site yet discovered in Southeast Asia. It

was also a centre for stone bead manufacture. Here were found large quantities of

unshaped carnelian, onyx and quartz fragments, carnelian bead blanks, cylinders of a

brown resin-like substance used by jewellers to hold gems while grinding and polishing.

Carnelian was popular for the making of beads and personal ornaments only from the

time of the High Metal Age (600 BC - 200BC) according to Ho Chui-Mei (1992),

suggesting that it represented a technological advance beyond the capacity of the

craftsmen of the Early Metal Age (1,500BC - 600BC). Lapidary methods were used to

work both glass and stone. Stone seals, oval-shaped and made of carnelian were found

engraved with motifs of Indian-Pallava (6th to 9th centuries AD) and Classical

Mediterranean origin. Those engraved with the Greek and Roman goddesses, Tyche and

Perseus, may have been part of a replication industry in which gem-cutters copied the

Mediterranean originals for some time after the decline of Roman seal production in the

4th to 5th centuries AD. Whilst it is possible that they represent earlier 1st to 2nd

century AD direct contact with the Graeco-Roman world, Bronson cautions against such

an early date since they resided with artefacts of a much younger date. Compared with

the very rich array of imported artefacts of Chinese porcelain and stonewares, Middle

Eastern, Indian glassware and Persian earthenwares found further up the coast at Ko

Kho Khao, such imported artefacts are rare at Khuan Lukpad. Bronson is therefore

11


12/115

inclined to think this industrial complex was one engaged in import-substitution to meet

the requirements of the domestic economy. He suggests that the craftsmen at this site

knew how to melt glass as attested by the remains of glass-melting pots, but did they

also know how to make glass? Glass sand of moderate quality occurs nearby in Phuket

and Krabi provinces; glass slag found at the site may be the debris of glass making

rather than just glass working. Such a centre could have imported some of its glass in

bulk or scrap form, and could have manufactured other items (Bronson,1986: 219).

Most glass beads appear to have been made by the drawn method, not wound, but there

is a notable absence of glass working blowpipes from this era in Southeast Asia.

Bronson states that glass moulding was not known at Khuan Lukpad, but that the

simpler hotworking techniques - the use of tools to press or cut a bead into shape while

the glass is still soft - were used to shape the larger beads. He has identified beads of 13

different colours ranging from the blue/blue greens to orange/reds and monochrome.

While some beads were clearly imported, others were made locally, the result of a

process of technology transfer possibly from an earlier complex elsewhere in Southeast

Asia, such as Oc-Eo.

The beadmakers of this isolated industrial complex at Khuan Lukpad had access

to a limited range of techniques and material; they did not have access to non-lead

glasses in the manganese violet and cobalt blue range; nor did they make multi-coloured

beads. Nevertheless, their skills went well beyond that of village level craft production.

The industrial techniques used produced beads in quantity were divided into specialised

tasks. The diversity of the raw materials required for the production suggests a highly

organised supply system. Bronson notes that the isolation of the site, the number of

industries centred there, the distant location of potential customers also indicate a

complex marketing system for these products. In terms of the rise of social complexity

in the last centuries of the first millenium BC and the first centuries of the Christian era,

Khuan Lukpad raises some interesting issues. Given that its location may have been to

take advantage of a ready supply of raw materials, why did such an industrial complex

not become the centre of an urban civilization? As Bronson asks, why are there no

monuments or fortifications here? There were clearly other industrial complexes around

12


13/115

based on metallurgy such as those in the Lopburi area and at Phu Lon in the northeast;

these also did not seem to become the centres of complex urbanized states at this time.

Were the factors stimulating the rise of social complexity distinct from those of

industrial development? In an illuminating essay on this issue Donn Bayard (1992)

stated that whilst everyone would agree on the importance of trade as one factor in the

rise of complex societies, it is obviously not the key factor. The extensive trade

networks in northeast Thailand some 2000 years prior to the beginnings of

centralization, as evidenced by the material culture of Non Nok Tha, Ban Na Di and Ban

Chiang, in themselves apparently did not create an urban tradition.

From Ban Don Ta Phet to Ongbah on the River Khwae Yai and a series of

sites in the Chao Phraya and Pasak Valleys archaeologists have unearthedevidence of this High Metal Age culture in Thailand. Contemporaneous with Ban

Don Ta Phet, the society of Ongbah had two groups one, called the Iron Age

aristocrats (Higham, 1998), were accorded boat shaped coffins - the others, buried

with head to the east or northeast, had no such coffins. Interred with them were

iron hoes, knives, spear blade, arrowheads and chisels, suggesting the tools of the

workmen as compared with the glass and stone beads, bronze ornaments and iron

weapons and tools in the boat shaped coffins. Higham has proposed that the boat

shaped coffins represent clear social and economic distinctions in the community.

Five bronze drums of the Dongson culture of Vietnam found with these burials

indicate participation in the regional Southeast Asian exchange network, but they

also show that the elite of Ongbah had the means to purchase them and to be able

to have them interred with their other possessions in death. Sorensen's (1990)

investigation of the decorative motifs on these drums and particularly the steering

devices on boats shown on the Vietnamese drums concluded that the boats were

craft suitable for river transport of men and goods, possibly used for inshore

navigation, but less suitable for seagoing expeditions. However, the boat depicted

on the Ongbah 89 drum is significantly different, for a fixed rudder is attached to

a circle at the rear end of a short keel. Sorenson claims that this is not only the

earliest evidence of such a technological innovation, but that it suggests the

13


14/115

possibility of deep sea navigation (1990: 196). He compares it with similar boats

depicted on the drums from Huu Chung province in Vietnam indicating that the

similarities suggest they are contemporary and date to about the 4th century BC.

Overall Sorensen concluded that the various types of Heger I drums of the

Dongson culture show that boats suitable for river transport did carry kettledrums

and that boats with fixed rudders existed which were able to transport the

kettledrums abroad, perhaps even as far as eastern Indonesia (Heine-Geldern,

1947: 167 - 179).

Sorensen also makes some interesting observations on other aspects of the

material culture drawn from the Dongson drums at Ongbah. The houses depicted

on the drum namedMakalamau, found with four other drums in 1937 on Gunung

Api, eastern Indonesia, stand on piles, have saddle-shaped roofs lower in the

middle than at the projecting ends, and without poles supporting the projecting

roof ends. Whilst such houses are also shown on the drum from Quang Xuong

province and are known in Indonesia, Sorensen states that they are exactly the

same as those on drum 86 from Ongbah, possibly indicating they were made at

some centre on mainland Southeast Asia. The house shown is not therefore

essentially an Indonesian house; more likely it depicts a reception or assembly

hall in its culture of origin, possibly Thanh Hoa province (Sorensen 1990: 197).

From the sites of Tha Muang in central Thailand, Noen Ma Kok north of

the Khao Wong Prachan Valley, Ban Wang Hai south of Lamphun, Ban Yang

Thong Tai east of Chiang Mai, Ban Wang Hat in the Yom River Valley, Ban

Bung Ya in Khamphaeng Phet, Chansen, Sri Thep in the Pasak River Valley, Ban

Nong Daeng, and the extensive moated site of U-Tapao, the Iron Age culture of

Thailand is manifest in a series of agate, carnelian and glass bead oranaments,

iron tools and spearheads, pottery vessels, bronze bangles and an ivory comb at

Chansen which was decorated with geese, horses and Buddhist symbols. Some of

the carnelian and exotic glass beads indicate participation in regional exchange

networks (Higham, 1998: 144). Whilst such communications had a part to play in

14


15/115

strengthening the links between communities in the prelude to the rise of more

complex societies, it is in the northeast of Thailand and on the Korat Plateau that

the clearest evidence for increasing social complexity occurs around 400BC,

approximately 400 years later than a corresponding development in the Dongson

culture of the Red River Delta in Vietnam. Thus an Iron Age culture was

widespread in Thailand and in Vietnam well before the southward expansion of

the Han Dynasty in the second century BC.

The transition from the autonomous ban of the Sakhon Nakhon Basin to

the more complex social organizations evident in the muang of the Korat Plateau

has been investigated by many archaeologists, both Thai and foreign, since the

1970's. They have built up a picture of rapid demographic change in this area of

northeast Thailand in the period 500BC - 500AD as the number and size of

settlements increased accompanied by technological, social and economic

developments. In his investigations into the moated settlements on the low

terraces and floodplains of the Sakhon Nakhon Basin and the Korat Plateau,

Srisakra Vallibhotama (1984) distinguished those early settlements in the Sakhon

Nakhon Basin built on the low terrace of the upper Nam Songkhram valley from

those in the Korat basin on the floodplain of the Mun and Chi river system. The

former, he concludes, show no sign of development beyond that of the village,

ban, community. The latter, on the other hand exhibit staged development from

unmoated settlements to moated and fortified settlements. According to

Vallibhotama, these fortified settlements are the towns and cities which became

the seats of the chiefdoms (Wheatley, 1983; Bellwood, 1985; Higham, 1989) in

the proto-historic period and which are found scattered around the floodplain. He

hypothesizes that they then spread to the low terrace areas of the Korat basin

where they encountered the rituals of Indianized culture through contact with the

Chenla sovereignty from the Mekong basin in the sixth century AD, and then the

Buddhist culture of the Dvaravati polity as it spread through the Chao Phraya

basin in the 7th century AD (1984: 128). These are the chiefdoms which

15


16/115

developed independently in Thailand from their own socio-cultural dynamics

prior to their transformation through cultural contacts with India.

Thus of the 172 settlements excavated in the Sakhon Nakhon basin, 84

were unmoated prehistoric sites of the Ban Chiang culture. Of the remainder,

only three moated sites were revealed: at Ban Don Ko in Nong Han Kumphawapi

Lake, and two others at Amphoe Nong Han, Udon Thani, and Sakhon Nakhon

city. Apart from Ban Don Ko which has some remains of upright stones

(megaliths) inscribed with Buddhist symbols of the Dvaravati style and a pillar

inscribed in the Mon script of the 7th century AD, Vallibhotama states that there

is no evidence of development here before the 9th century AD. By contrast, on

the floodplain of the lower Mun-Chi valley, over 36 sites were revealed

associated with iron smelting and moated settlement patterns of occupation.

In the lower Mun-Chi valley the chronological development of human

settlements from pre-historic to proto-historic may be seen in the contrast between

the unmoated or single-moated settlements in Surin and Roi Et provinces with the

double or triple moated settlements and the large settlements fortified by moats

and earth walls on the southern bank of the Mun river at Ban Pakiam, Ban Dong

Phong, Ban Khok Muang and Ban Thung Wang. Vallibhotama identifies a group

of moated settlements with highly developed planning and structural elements in

the Lam Phang Su area west of Lam Phlapphla at Ban Muang Su, Ban Saen Si,

Ban Yawuk, Ban Han Hai, Ban Muang Kwang and Muang Phutthai Song.

Whilst the latter two are fortified settlements, the larger size of Muang Phutthai

Song indicates a greater concentration of population. He traces a similar pattern

of development from simple unmoated or single moated settlements to double or

triple moated settlements in the Rasi Salai Plain, Sisaket Province where the more

complex settlements were established on the borders of the area near the bank of

the Mun River (such as Ban Lup Mok) and on the northern bank of the Chi River.

Bayard has also noted the presence of these centralizing trends in northeast

Thailand from about 400BC (1992: 25). There seems to be a pattern of

16


17/115

development from the early sedentary settlements in the middle of the floodplain

where the use of the single moat was associated with water storage during the

long dry season, to the establishment of the double and triple moated settlements

geared to agricultural purposes amongst which the few with fortified earthworks,

moats and earthwalls indicate a defensive function for a centre providing

protection to the group of settlements in the area.

Thus, on the low terraces of the Korat Plateau the evidence for human

occupation over long periods of time in both unmoated and moated settlements is

extensive. The moated fortified settlements are of two types: one built on the site

of an older unmoated settlement; and the other on a new, previously unoccupied

site. The latter type is marked by the absence of potsherds, which are abundant in

the case of the former type, and represents a new urban centre built after the

selection of a suitable site. Vallibhotama therefore suggests that the sequence

from unmoated to moated fortified settlement represents a chronological

development from ban to muang - from village culture to urban centre. Across

the region are many settlements exhibiting traces of complex social and cultural

structures such as those at Ban Tat Thong, Yasothon Provice; Muang Talung,

Buriram, Muang Aem, Udon Thani, Muang Fa Daed, Yasothon Province; and

Muang Nakhon Champasi, Maha Sarakham. Within these fortified settlements,

an inner moat and clay wall separate the habitation zone from the cultivation

zone. Potsherds abound in the habitation zone. Further subdivision of these

zones is marked by various smaller moats and earth dykes. Such partitioned

settlements are considered to represent the most sophisticated form of human

settlement in the Korat basin in pre-Khmer, pre-Angkorian times (Vallibhotama,

1984: 127).

In similar vein, Welch has investigated the Phimai region of the Korat

Plateau, in the upper Mun River valley around the present day town of Phimai in

Nakhon Ratchasima Province. He posits that this area exhibits long term

continuity of settlement since late prehistoric times exploiting wet rice

17


18/115

agricultural production and the need for protection against the annual floods.

During what he calls the Phimai period (500BC - 500AD), he states that

communities here developed a complex system of socio-political organization

involving control of regional and long distance trade-exchange networks. Such

complex political organization he defines as having at least two levels of

community decision making authority with the highest level integrating the lower

level communities into a single political unit, either as a chiefdom or a state.

The Korat Plateau exhibits just that cluster pattern of village settlements which

could lend itself to this two-tiered form of early political organization. The few

larger political centres are distinguished from the cluster of smaller villages in

terms of size, economic, administrative or religious role through which political

power may be exercised. Below the eleventh century Khmer temple complex at

Phimai the excavations of Solheim, Parker and Ayres revealed evidence of

continual human occupation from about 165BC across a settlement size of 30 to

40 hectares. Phimai seems to have been one of these significant political centres

even before it became a regional Khmer capital (Welch, 1990: 130). Between

Korat and Phimai, there seems to have been fourteen other similar centres larger,

and with more sophisticated socio-political organizational structures than the

autonomous village complex.

The northeast region is fortunate in being able to benefit from the broad

flood plain of the Mun River, 15km to 20 km wide, which has produced large

continuous stretches of land suitable for wet rice cultivation. Welch's excavations

revealed four cultural sequences here of which the earliest or Tamyae period falls

1000BC - 500BC; the second or Phimai period 500BC - 500AD; the third or early

historic period 500AD - 1300AD including the Khmer period 1000AD - 1300AD,

then the fourth or recent historic period, 1300AD to the present. Fifteen of

seventeen habitation sites belonged to the Phimai period. Phimai Black ceramics

were common to all these sites on an axis 25km to the northeast - 50km to the

southwest. Rice chaff found as a temper in pottery of the early Tamyae period

and the Phimai period is seen as evidence that rice was being harvested in these

18


19/115

sequences and that the commitment to wet rice agriculture increased the need to

establish settlements on the higher ground secure from flooding, thus contributing

to the pattern of long term occupation. The higher population densities which

could be supported by this type of ecosystem, Welch suggests, could have

encouraged the trend to economic and political integration. Its location on major

trade routes close to the seasonally navigable Mun River system would have also

contributed to the development of regional and long distance trade. Bronson

(1976) has shown for example that the Phimai Black ceramics were traded as far

as Chansen in central Thailand and that bronze, beads, stone and some ceramics

were imported from outside the region. Such evidence however is still quite

limited. There is nevertheless evidence of rapid and widespread expansion of

complex socio-political settlements across the Korat Plateau in the Iron Age prior

to the development of states influenced by Indian and Chinese culture.

From the preceding discussion it will be seen that most of our evidence for

the prehistoric societies in Thailand comes from the material cultures. There is

little evidence of the scale of spiritual values which may have conditioned their

relationships to each other, and to the earth and sky. It is thought that the

megalithic spiritual culture which dominated much of Austronesia in the pre-

historic period may not have been widespread in Thailand. Whilst most

agricultural societies of the Neolithic, bronze and iron age cultures expressed their

spirituality through animism or acknowledgement of the beneficial interaction

with spirits of the forest, earth and sky, there is as yet tantalisingly little evidence

apart from what is identified as the 'shaman's grave' at Ban Kao in west Thailand

(Sorensen 1973, 86). Quaritch Wales on the other hand in a series of books has

written extensively on the cult of earth' and the 'cult of sky' purportedly present

amongst these pre- and proto-historic cultures. In the solar designs of the Dong

Son drums he suggests evidence of a spirituality focussing on a cult of the sky; in

the animal figurines found amongst the grave goods there may be evidence of a

cult of the earth which acknowledged the life-giving forces of the seasonal cycle

important to the sustenance regimes of the Neolithic communities. In the patterns

19


20/115

of inhumation, whether in the 90 'boat burials' at Ban Kao and Ongbah, or infant

jar burials, or layered patterns suggesting groups of one family interred

contiguous to each other, there may be both elements of ancestor worship and

respect for familial kinship systems. Whilst the evidence from Egypt and

Mesopotamia on these issues is extensive and allows scholars to reconstruct a

convincing picture of the spiritual systems of these ancient civilizations, that from

the pre- and proto-historic communities of Thailand is yet scanty and does not

allow us to do more than make comparative inferences. As Sorensen has written,

following the earlier investigations of Quaritch Wales, the solar motif on the

tympanum of Heger I type Dong Son drums suggests that these probably served

religious purposes and were utilised in funerary rites in a cult of the dead.' In a

study undertaken by Vietnamese scholars, it has been suggested that the Dong

Son drums were primarily rain drums and thus part of the cults of earth and sky

fundamental to people who were agriculturalists body and soul. (Pham 1990:

271).

Another tantalising aspect of the spiritual life of prehistoric Thailand

occurs in the range of cave art occurring from the west in Kanchanaburi Province

to the northeast in Loei and Ubon Ratchathani, and south to Krabi Province. In

some of this cave art human figures are associated with fish and dolphins,

elephants and huge catfish. At Pha Taem, a series of friezes on the walls of caves

along the Mekong in Ubon Ratchathani province, shows figures of bulls, hand

impressions and huge catfish. Similar paintings occur at Khong Jiam and at Khao

Plara in Uthai Thani province, also in northeast Thailand, with etchings of the

bull, catfish and elephant again prominent. The cave art from Tham Pha Daeng

on the Mae Lamun Stream, Kanchanaburi province includes a sketch of a bull

together with figures apparently wearing feathered headdresses. In view of

Quartich Wales' and Basham's writings on the cult of the bull amongst early

animistic communities in prehistoric times in the Indus River valley of northwest

India, we might ask whether these items of cave art testify to its presence across

the prehistoric communities of Thailand in a similar timespan. Perhaps the

20


21/115

lacunae in our knowledge only emphasize how much more research is needed to

substantiate what in essence is often only a theoretical framework. A fully

developed spiritual system with its attendant buildings, monuments, writing

system, inscriptions, rituals, administrative bureaucracy and literary heritage was

an inherent part of the transition from iron age muang to statehood.

Penny (1984: 156 -157) is surely enlightening in his view that the expansion of

relations with neighbouring states amongst the iron age muang in Thailand reflects the

basic stability and continuity of the village based culture. Penny argues that there was

no need to employ the elements of coercion or exploitation, since both land and water

resources were adequate for the needs of the village based culture. Cautioning against

drawing invalid comparisons with the emergence of states in other parts of the world,

Penny takes the view that cultural development amongst the iron age chiefdoms of

Thailand should be seen on its own merits as a reflection of the underlying prosperity

and rich subsistence resources of the region. It could be said that it was the very

prosperity of the area which provided the confidence to interact with external networks

and which in turn attracted those external influences to interact with the iron age muang.

Such interaction is usually inspired by need, or the urge to acquire items not readily

available locally, both exotic items which may be classed as luxury items desired by

emerging elite groups, and utilitarian items for household use, and raw materials for

manufacture. As shown by the archaeological evidence of the moated sites of the Mun

and Chi River valleys in northeast Thailand, spatial expansion in response to population

growth, and central place organisation across the Korat Plateau was occurring throughout

the first millennium BC, pre-dating evidence in the archaeological record of Indianized

heirarchical socio-political structures. Thus development of, or participation in,

interregional and international exchange networks should be seen as a consequence of

increasing socio-cultural complexity rather than an originating stimulus to such structural

changes. Long-distance exchange networks, after all, can exist without giving rise to

urbanized states with monumental superstructure, for example the Lapita cultural

complex of Melanesia, across which obsidian was transported at least as early as 5000BC

(Kirch, 1990: 26).

21


22/115

PART II

Early State Formation in the proto-historic period: the cases of U-thong, Sri

Mahasod, Sri Thep and Sri Chanasa

The conference on Early Southeast Asia held in London in 1974 (Smith and

Watson, 1979) focussed on the value of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary

approaches in enriching our understanding of the processes of socio-cultural change

during the pre- and proto-historic periods of Southeast Asian history. Archaeological

research since that time has contributed stimulating new perspectives on the

developments in agriculture, metallurgy and social complexity in the region. The

approaches taken by social and cultural anthropologists have led to re-examination and

re-interpretation of the few extant written sources and particularly of the concept of

'Indianization' of Southeast Asia and the role played by the ancient maritime and overland

trade networks in the transition from 'chiefdoms' to sophisticated, urbanized 'states.'

While the early polities of mainland Southeast Asia may be seen as links in the series of

international and interregional exchange networks stretching from the Mediterranean

world to Han China (Glover, 1989) concern has been to challenge the view that the

region was merely a trans-shipment point for foreign merchants (Wang Gungwu,

1989:xvi). A closely related line of scholarly research has focussed on the nature of

indigenous states, how they evolved from the prehistoric socio-cultural complexes of the

region, and how different their political and social dynamics were from the picture

presented in the Chinese dynastic histories which described these polities in terms of the

Chinese structural experience. As Wang Gungwu has stated, no Southeast Asian polity,

statue or monument is unmistakably Indian (1989, xvi). Greater recognition is now given

to local, indigenous, political and cultural dynamics. Similarly, the role of early maritime

trade is weighed against the cultural exchanges effected across the ancient overland trade

routes. The overland Silk Route and the maritime Spice and Silk Route were the

communications and transportation networks across which flowed the new ideas,

technologies, soldiers, sailors, merchants, craftsmen and tradesmen, politicians and

religious missionaries as well as the luxury products of forest, field and mine between

22


23/115

east and west. Nor were these luxury goods the only items of trade; there is clear

evidence that much of the ancient trade across the early maritime networks was in bulk

goods - grains, teak, and minerals (Asthana, 1947; Adams, 1974; Ratnagar, 1981; Casson,

1984; Edens, 1992).

Above all, these famous trading networks came into being and were maintained

in response to the requirements of the indigenous polities, both east and west, which

formed the markets and production points giving the networks their justification for

being. Without such polities the networks would have ceased to function as happened

during periods of political upheaval. The sum of the results of this scholarly research

has underpinned the recognition that Southeast Asia has an historical unity of its own,

distinct from both Indianization and Sinicization. More importantly, it has shown that

Southeast Asia has always been part of the continuum of communications east and west,

pre-dating Augustan Rome and Han China, and in its linkages hearkening back to the

early empires of Sumeria, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt and the Anatolian Plateau, Persia,

the Hittites and Phoenicians, the Minoan, Mycenaean and Dorian cultures of Ancient

Greece, the Indus Valley civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, and the early

Empires of Central Asia. The research of scholars in many disciplines has conclusively

shown that just as there was probably no one moment when agriculture was invented,

so too the initiative to interact with neighbouring groups and to exchange commodities,

ideas, and technologies over both water and land routes was not delineated by any one

moment in time. There is ample evidence that by the third millennium BC, there were

well-established trading networks, both interregional and international, operating within

and across the expanding centres of civilization from the Mediterranean-Middle East

world, to the Southeast Asian-Chinese-Austronesian-Pacific world. These built on much

older interaction networks both by land and sea developed since man learnt to move his

wares by donkey overland, or across water on hollowed out logs or reed boats (Casson,

1971: 3 10). It would be inaccurate therefore to consider the world system

interlinkages of Augustan Rome and Han China in the first century AD as having

suddenly originated at that time. They followed long-established, pre-existing patterns of

intercultural communication, what some scholars have argued was an interconnecting

23


24/115


25/115

Gulf of Siam, in an area exposed to economic and cultural contact with external

influences by sea. Evidence for participation in interregional and international exchange

networks is shown by the foreign cultural elements mixed in with artefacts of local

origin. Thus Vallibhotama notes, amongst these foreign elements, cult objects, coins,

beads, earrings, combs and seals bearing symbolic designs. Amongst the locally made

objects were images of the Buddha and deities, coins and seals based on Indian designs,

fragments of terracotta and stucco decorations for long vanished religious structures.

Analysing these finds, Vallibhotama suggests that two localities amongst these

ancient settlements may have functioned as chief ports for contact with the international

exchange networks and as re-distribution centres to other settlements within the deltaic

regions. They are U Thong in the Tha Chin river basin in the west delta region, and Sri

Mahosod in the Bang Pakong river basin to the east. In addition to the presence of

foreign cultural objects indicating participation in the long distance trade network, east

and west, both sites are said to exhibit distinct characteristics of urbanization showing

development from the pre-historic chiefdom status. These traits are the number of

religious monuments and buildings, irrigation and transportation networks, fortifications,

and satellite communities within a 5 - 10 kilometre radius from the centre, thus

suggesting a substantial population deployed around the main centre. Vallibhotama

believes that most of the finds are contemporaneous with those at Oc Eo in Vietnam and

Beikthano in Myanmar, thus dating them to between the second and sixth century AD

and that these centres represent the earliest 'states' that ever developed in Central

Thailand (Vallibhotama,1984 : 123 - 128). They exhibited the proliferation of symbolic,

ritualized objects of individual social position and power which DeMarrais et als identify

as the materialized ideology of emerging state level society (DeMarrais et als, 1996: 17

23).

In addition to U Thong and Sri Mahasod, Vallibhotama has identified another

four large moated settlements in the major river basins of Thailand. They are Nakhon

Chaisri in the lower Tha Chin, Kubua in the Mae Klong, Lavo or Lopburi on the eastern

bank of the Lop Buri River, and Sri Thep in the upper Pasak Valley. The first three had

25


26/115

access to the sea by means of large waterways connected to the Gulf of Thailand, while

Sri Thep on the overland route connecting the Central Plain with the Korat Plateau in

northeast Thailand may have been the inland junction for the network. Vallibhotama

(1989, 1992) has noted the cultural differences in these centres: those in the west show

signs of having embraced Buddhism whilst those in the east exhibit Hindu cultural

remains. The difference in belief systems is equated with a difference in political entity.

Thus Vallibhotama (and also Dhida Saraya, see below) rejects the hypothesis that

Central Thailand's earliest political centre was at Nathon Pathom and later at Lop Buri.

By studying the cultural evidence such as burial mounds, Buddhist monuments and

artefacts, Vallibhotama concluded that a socio-economic network existed amongst the

settlements in the same river basins and that larger centres were able to extend their

cultural network far beyond their own river basins to other regions. Thus in separating

art style from political entity and surveying the size and distribution of ancient

settlements in the Chao Phraya delta of Central Thailand at the beginning of the Christian

Era, Vallibhotama (1989) discounts the view that there was a single integrated state

called Dvaravati. Rather there were at least two rival city states identified as U Thong in

the west, a centre which embraced Buddhism, and Sri Mahosod in the east, a centre

which embraced Hinduism. These were formed from heirarchies of village, town and

city grouped together in their own river basins with the largest settlement as the centre.

Evidence of the participation of mainland Southeast Asian polities in the long

distance international exchange network first came from the work of Louis Malleret who,

in 1942 - 44, unearthed archaeological remains at another delta port site at Oc-eo in the

lower Mekong River basin. Here Malleret uncovered two Roman medallions, one minted

during the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 138 - 152), and another in the reign one of his

successors, Marcus Aurelius ( AD 161 - 180), as well as a Chinese mirror of the Later

Han dynasty of the same vintage, Iranian coinage, Indian inspired jewellery, gold rings

and merchant seals, and tin amulets with symbols of Vishnu and Siva. Amongst a

wealth of material culture, the finds led scholars to conclude that Oc-eo was a major

entrepot in an international trading network which linked Ancient Rome and India with

Han China. Oc-eo was well placed to function as a gateway for goods traded up and

26


27/115

down the Mekong basin ( Higham, 1989: 254). In this way it would have been linked

with the interregional networks across the Korat Plateau of northeast Thailand and

through them to Sri Thep in the Pasak River basin, and thence to the emerging

contemporaneous polities of the Central Chao Phraya basin investigated by

Vallibhotama, U Thong and Sri Mahosod.

Vallibhotama made a significant distinction between these two centres. He

suggests that U Thong emerged from an outcrop of earlier settlements dating from the

second half of the first millenium BC, the archaeological remains of which testify to

cultural influence from overseas at this time during a notably pre-Buddhist phase of its

cultural development. Upstream from U Thong, the number of pre- and proto-historic

settlements in the Tha Chin valley increases as far as Suphanburi, Singburi and Chainat

in the upper reaches of the valley. The archaeological remains indicated that U Thong

was the most densely populated of the settlements. It may have been the distribution

centre for goods of economic and ritualistic, religious and symbolic value to the centres

upstream (Vallibhotama, 1992). Sri Mahasod, on the other hand, appears to have been a

newer centre having no prehistoric base. Situated in the Bang Pakong River valley to the

east, the intermediary role it played in trans-shipment of goods, trade and

communications with the hinterland centres towards the Cambodian lowlands in the east

allowed it to develop rapidly into an important urbanized centre in the region. It quickly

surpassed the inland regional prehistoric centres around Amphoe Phanat Nikom,

Chonburi, which appear not to have engaged in overseas economic and cultural contacts.

The distribution of imported cultural artifacts associated with U Thong and Sri Mahosod

- the beads, ear-rings, armlets, precious stones, jade, carnelian and coloured glass - and

the religious objects, terracotta and metal seals showing Hindu and Buddhist sacred

symbols indicate that by at least the first half of the first millennium AD these

settlements in the Chao Phraya valley were participating in the international and

interregional exchange networks linking them to the Middle East and India, Vietnam and

China. The Tha Chin and Bang Pakong rivers played a crucial distribution and

transportation role between the coastal regions and the upper riverine settlements co-

ordinating the interregional trading networks.

27


28/115

Support for this view is also provided by Glover (1989) who has argued that such

cultural finds, like that of the famous Roman lamp found at Pong Tuk on the bank of

the Meklong River in west Thailand, are not the result of 'drift' or intermittent

transportation through reciprocal exchange networks over short distances as postulated by

Wheeler (1954: 206 - 7), but are evidence of participation in a system of regular

exchange links between Southeast Asia and India in this era. Glover cites the evidence

from excavations at Ban Don Ta Phet in Thailand in support of his views. Ban Don Ta

Phet, he states, provides the earliest and most extensive evidence of trading and cultural

links between this part of Southeast Asia and India. Such evidence includes a copper

coin of the Western Roman Emperor Victorinus (AD 268 - 70) which was minted at

Cologne and found at U-Thong in western Thailand, and which now resides in the Thai

National Museum; an Indian ivory comb from the moated settlement at Chansen in

Central Thailand excavated by Bronson and Dales and dated to between 1st and 3rd

centuries AD, now also in the Thai National Museum; Roman carnelian intaglio seals

from Khlong Thom, Krabi Province southern Thailand dated to 2nd century AD, one of

which portrays the Goddess Tyche (Fortuna), the other a pair of fighting cockerels; some

600 (out of 3,000) beads of semi-precious stones such as agate, carnelian, rock crystal

and jade found at Ban Don Ta Phet; a carved carnelian leaping lion pendant from Ban

Don Ta Phet which Glover (1989:28) considers a first century AD representation of the

Buddha, thus being one of the earliest Buddhist artefacts in this region. Taking into

account the evidence of all the material culture, Glover therefore agrees with

Vallibhotama and Saraya that by the first century AD this region was already part of the

ancient prehistoric international exchange networks linking east and west which extended

from the Mediterranean Sea to South China.

Wheatley drew attention to the fact that the great maritime trade route should be

seen more accurately as a series of trade routes across which no one group of merchants

operated from end to end, nor one class of merchandise was transported. On the western

end of the route, the bronze age merchants of the Indus Valley civilization and those of

Sumeria gave way to the iron age Arab, Greek and Egyptian merchants. Indian Tamil

28


29/115

merchants also travelled eastwards. After the withdrawal of the Greco-Roman merchants

around the end of the second century AD, these Indian Tamil seafarers continued to ply

their trade from the ports on the Coromandel coast of India across the Bay of Bengal to

the ports on the Thai/Malay Peninsula. On the eastern end of the route, the trade of the

Austronesian world and the South China seas at the beginning of the Christian era was

largely in the hands of various sea-faring peoples collectively known in the Chinese

records as the K`uen-luen (Wheatley, 1975: 231). These same people had plied the

sealanes of the Austronesian world since the Holocene and had ventured to as far away as

Madagascar.

On the Coromandel coast of southeastern India, excavations in 1945 at

Arikamedu, Ptolemy's Podouke, (also known as Virampatnam) by Sir Mortimer Wheelershowed that it too was an emporium similar to Barygaza (Pattabiramin, 1946: 9-13). The

archaeological remains of merchant residences, warehouses and harbor provide mute

testimony to the part it played in the east-west trade of the first century of the Christian

era. Here, between 23 96AD the merchants known as yavana, Greeks, in Indian

literature, gathered to meet the traders from Southeast Asia from whom they purchased

the cargoes of pepper, pearls, gems, muslins, tortoise shell, ivory and silk to ship back to

the Roman Orient. In return, theyavana merchants provided glass, vases, lamps, wine

and coined money. Pliny the Elder ( 23 79AD) laments the drain on Roman specie of

this trade. Amongst some 68 hoards of Roman coins found in India, some 57 occur in

south India, the majority of them from the time of Augustus (27BC 14AD) and Tiberius

(14 37AD). They were apparently used as bullion rather than currency, being weighed

out in exchange for goods (Hall 1985: 34). As long ago as 1885, Walter Elliot had

commented on the large number of Roman coins found with Chinese and Arab coins at

various places on the Coromandel Coast after every high wind, which he thought

indicated extensive commerce between China and the Red Sea (Pattabiramin, 1946: 42).

Greek was, in the first and second centuries AD, the language of commerce, in the

emporia on the east-west trade routes. Begley has re-assessed all the evidence and

concluded that Arikamedu was a significant commercial centre linking the coastal/inland

trade with the long distance international trade long before the Greco-Roman sailors

29


30/115

appeared around the tip of Cape Cormorin. Moreover, it was not alone. Along the eastern

seaboard of India, facing the Bay of Bengal, further port sites have been identified in

association with river estuaries at Korkai, Kaveripattinam, Karaikadu, Vasavasamudram.

On the basis of the distribution of the distinctive ceramic Rouletted Ware first found at

Arikamedu, Begley suggests that there was a well-established trading and communication

network linking the entire east coast of India (Begley, 1983: 462) in the few centuries

prior to the Christian era.

Begley highlights the unique position of Arikamedu as a trading centre on the

southeast coast of India first settled during the Mauryan period of contact with South

India, which coordinated systematic trade between the ports on the Coromandel coast and

the West prior to the beginning of Indo-Roman trade in the first centuries AD. In a key

position along both the coastal trading network of the Coromandel coast, and the

international route linking the eastern seaboard of India, northwestern Sri Lanka, the

Malay Peninsula/southern Thailand and the Mediterranean world, Arikamedu

experienced an intensification of trade in the first centuries of the Christian era. Some 75

coin hoards of Roman denarii and aurei each of several hundred coins minted in the

reigns from Augustus to Nero were found in the Coimbatore region on the main inland

communication route linking the eastern and western coasts via the Ponnani valley.

Analysis of their spatial distribution led Begley to suggest that, contra Wheeler, there was

direct overseas trade from the Mediterranean world with Arikamedu even before the main

period of Roman commerce evident in Phases D, E, F and G. In agreement with

Wheeler,however, Begley believes that Arikamedu may have been a supply/redistribution

centre for other settlements on the eastern littoral and hinterland (Begley, 1983: 479

480).

From the various excavations, remains of this trade are evident in the 50 or so

sherds of Roman Arretine ware, fragments of Roman lamps, a crystal gem and perhaps a

stylus. Exports probably included semi-precious stones, shell bangles, worked ivories,

textiles, leather goods, spices, incense and other perishables. Did Arikamedu, even prior

30


31/115

to the Christian era, have trading links eastward across the Bay of Bengal, to the ports on

the Malay Peninsula and China? Did the Tamil sailors make port in Takkola as indicated

by a Tamil inscription found by Lajonquiere (Pattabiramin, 1946: 43)? Was Arikamedus

demise caused by withdrawal of the overseas trade consequent on political upheavals in

the Roman-Mediterranean world, or fall in sea-levels affecting the harbors as happened to

Sating Pra and other ports on the Malay Peninsula, or both? Perhaps it is time to follow

up more closely on the observation of Sir Walter Elliot in 1885 that together with the

Roman coins there were many Chinese and Arabian pieces found along the Coromandel

coast at frequent intervals after every high wind (Pattabiramin, 1946: 42). It seems

certain for instance that much of Han Chinas silk trade with Imperial Rome was

conducted across the sea route via Kancipura (Conjeveram) in southeastern India. In

terms of the focus of this conference, it is important to note the celebrated passage in the

Han Shu, during the Yuan-shih period of Emperor Ping (1 6AD) when Wang Mang

was in power, the Chief Interpreter was sent on an Imperial trade mission along the

searoute to places identified as Sumatra, Thatung in lower Burma, Pagan, Ceylon, Pulau

Pisan on the southwestern end of the Malay Peninsula, taking gold and silk to exchange

for pearls, beryl, curious stones and foreign exotic items. We are told that the trading

boats of the barbarians which carried them from one place to another were also engaged

in trade as well as in rapacity making the venture very dangerous. It took several years

to return to China. They brought back large pearls almost two inches in circumference.

The inclusion of Thatung is significant in view of Professor Aung-Thwins research that

no Chinese source includes reference to an independent kingdom or polity in Lower

Burma before the very late thirteenth century (Aung-Thwin 2005: 52). It is not certain

31


32/115


33/115

process, thus proving that the bead industry was local, and not imported from the West.

The fragments of glass uncovered even in Casals excavation suggest that the lada

process was used throughout the occupation of Arikamedu. Different chemical additives

were used to produce various colours. Thus soda was used at Arikamedu in making the

red glass beads; potash for other colours (Francis, 1990: 6). The most common

Arikamedu bead was a monochrome drawn bead less than 6mm in diameter. Some glass

beads were made by the minor technique of being ground and perforated, unfinished

examples of which have been found at Arikamedu indicating local production.

Significantly, such beads are known from Ban Don Ta Phet, Thailand with a date of early

fourth century BC, Mantai, Sri Lanka in the late first millennium AD, Nishapur, Iran in

the early Islamic period and Uyaw Cave in The Philippines which is about the same

period as Arikamedu (Francis, 1991: 33). Such a distribution, particularly those from

Ban Don Ta Phet and Uyaw Cave, would suggest trading linkages eastwards of these

beads. Indo-Pacific beads have been found at seven sites in Southeast Asia where they

were manufactured as proven by the evidence of diagnostic wasters. These sites are

Mantai, Sri Lanka, Oc-eo, Vietnam, Klong Thom, Sating Pra and Takua Pa, southern

Thailand, and Kuala Selingsing and Sungai Mas, Malaysia. Of these, Klong Thom, Oc-

eo and Mantai had links with Arikamedu (Francis, 1991: 34), and may all have been

established in the first to second century AD. Francis suggests that Tamil bead makers

from Arikamedu may have settled at these sites after Arikamedu itself was abandoned.

Not only did they trade with each other, but also each was among the first urban centres

in their region; each was a major port having Roman, Persian and Chinese imports. Each

is identified with Roman emporia in Ptolemys Geographia: Arikamedu with Poduke;

Mantai with Modutti; Oc-eo with Kattigara, and Klong Thom with Takkola (Gerinis

identification of Takkola with Takua Pa is no longer considered valid). Francis considers

that as each site was abandoned, the beadmakers moved on, those from Oc-eo to Sating

Pra then to Takua Pa, those of Klong Thom to Kuala Selingsing then to Sungai Mas

(Francis, 1991:34 - 35). By the tenth century when the Cholas overran Mantai, the

beadmaking industry was in difficulties, and if the descendants of the beadmakers moved

back to India, possibly to Nagapattinam, there is as yet no confirmed archaeological

evidence.

33


34/115

There is another interesting link between Arikamedu and Ban Don Ta Phet in that

Arikamedu is among the earliest sites where the use of double tipped diamond drills is

recorded for use in perforating stone beads, whilst this practice is also documented for

Ban Don Ta Phet dating from the fourth century BC (Glover, 1989:21). Francis has

pointed out that all stone beads manufactured at Arikamedu were bored with this type of

drill, except those bored from only one side. Diamonds from India were sent to Rome

and China during the heyday of Arikamedu (Francis, 1991: 38). Thus it is believed that

Arikamedu was a major lapidary centre exporting its products east as well as west.

Amongst its products were the sought after onyx, used to make cameos at this period in

Rome, red glass, collar beads, and folded beads. Possibly different guilds or social

groups specialized in different types of beads. Francis concludes that it is no longer

valid to consider Arikamedu merely an Indo-Roman trading station, or to assess its

contribution to the world system merely in terms of its linkages to the Mediterranean

world. Its pioneering beadmaking production techniques lived on at other sites in

Southeast Asia long after Arikamedu itself had been abandoned, which strongly suggests

that Arikamedu looked east far more than it looked west (Francis, 1991: 40).

The part Arikamedu played in the process of state formation in Southeast Asia is

only just coming to light as research on the Indo-Pacific beads is able to provide new

insights into the socio-economic relations of those early urban centres engaged in this

industry. Indo-Pacific beads were made for some two thousand years. The two types

the drawn bead cut from glass tubes and the wound bead made by twirling hot glass

around a mandrel are widespread throughout Southeast Asia, southern China, Korea,

Japan, southern India and Sri Lanka, but are less common in the Persian Gulf and

northern India (Francis, 1990(a): 1). First made at Arikamedu, some 50,000 beads and

wasters now in the Pondicherry museum testify to the importance of this industry for

Arikamedu (250BC 200AD) which was making beads at least two hundred years before

the first Greco-Roman traders appeared, and continued to do so for more than a century

after their departure. This was a century or more before the invention of the blow-pipe

in the western Mediterranean (Francis, 1990(a): 3). Thus it is important to keep the

34


35/115

notion of the Roman emporium in perspective. The group of Mediterranean merchants

trading to Arikamedu, were engaged in personal entrepreneurial activities; they were not

the spearhead of empire. They were essentially more important to themselves than to the

locals on whose tolerance they relied for continuance of their activities. In such Treaty

Ports as Charlesworth suggested they were, the Yavana (Greek) merchants were allowed

to reside and transact business (Charlesworth, 1951: 142). When civil strife in Rome

during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161 180AD) led to reduced capacity to undertake

eastern trading ventures, most of the emporia were abandoned. Of greater importance

and longer lived, were Arikamedus trading relations eastward with Oc-eo, Mantai, and

Klong Thom. Not only were these early urban centres in their respective regions from

the first to at least the sixth centuries AD, but also each was the site of a Greco-Roman

emporium. At Mantai, Ptolemys Modutti emporium, Arab and Persian merchants from

the west could meet those of the east, each brought by the opposite monsoon winds, and

relying on the monsoon reversal to guide their homeward journeys. Here beads made in

Arikamedu have been found, as they have in Klong Thom, Krabi Province, southern

Thailand, and at Oc-eo, the port of Funan, which was occupied in the second to sixth

centuries AD. Klong Thom would have been a centre for the trans-isthmus trade,

comparable to Mantai, whilst Oc-eo, Ptolemys Kattigara, has been called the chief relay

port in the Malay-Chinese trade (Francis, 1990(a): 5). The four ports shared a common

technology in the art of Indo-Pacific beadmaking, a technology which continued at the

Southeast Asian centres for some centuries after Arikamedu was abandoned.

Thus it could be said the interregional, and indeed intraregional, trading networks

arose from, and continued to meet, the needs of emerging urbanized states both long

before the Pax Romana intensified commercial activity across the sealanes from the

Mediterranean to the China sea, and long after political crises in Rome saw the

withdrawal of the Greco-Roman merchants from the trading entrepots of Southeast Asia.

Their withdrawal did not mean that the world trading system ceased. Their withdrawal

may have been barely a minor ripple across the system as the Arab, Middle Eastern,

Indian, Kuen Lun and Chinese merchants continued their ancient seafaring commerce.

35


36/115

PART III

The Funan, Chen-la, Lin-yi, Dvaravati Dynamic

Chinese interest in the southern sea route to the west increased during times when

hostile activity in Central Asia cut their access to goods coming across the overland Silk

Routes. From the mission of Kang Tai and Zhu Ying, sent by the Wu Emperor in

about AD 245 250 to investigate the possible opening of a maritime silk route between

China and Rome (Higham, 2001: 24) has come a description of a state of Funan located

in the Mekong Delta whose port was Oc-Eo and whose capital, it was once thought was

Vyadhapura, the City of the Hunter (Siva) just south of present day Phnom Penh

(Ferrand, 1904: 153, Rogers, 1996:63, Higham, 1989: 247), which is derived

linguistically from the old Khmer word, bnam or mountain. The kings of Funan, took as

their royal title King of the Mountain. (Coedes, 1975: 36). However, Vickery (1998:

18) supported by Higham (2001) has disputed this view, and considers that Angkor

Borei, linked by canal to Oc Eo, has stronger claims to being the central place of Funan.

Here the remains of an iron age cemetery underlying habitation sites which utilized an

orange pottery, indicate that the site was occupied from at least the fourth century BC up

until the sixth century AD of the Funan polity (and even into the later Angkor period).

Other archaeological remains indicate that there was a series of trading communities,

such as those at Go Hang and Noen U-Loke, in the hinterland and Mekong Delta, which

engaged in international trade towards the end of the first millennium BC. Their

interconnection by means of a network of canals providing the transportation system for

the trading goods may be a sign that Funan was one political entity (Higham, 2001: 34).

The geographical extent of the maritime trading polity, Funan, is thought to have

reached the lower Chao Phraya valley to U-thong, the Malay Peninsula and perhaps even

to lower Burma, based on a mainly Mon-Khmer population. How far into the valleys of

the Mun-Chi rivers of northeast Thailand did it extend? Was Funans military activity

responsible for the termination of the 4,000 year old Ban Chiang culture in northeast

Thailand, perhaps deporting the population to other centres in Funan itself? Kang Tai

describes a polity whose maritime commerce was backed by military conquest, whose

36


37/115


38/115

Phraya and the Andaman Sea. In the anthropological approach of Johnson and Earle on

the evolution of human societies, in Funan cultural identification and economic

interdependence superseded biological bonding to dramatically change the fiber of social

cohesion. Whilst at the geographical periphery of the state actual control would be

dubious given the difficulties of travel and communication, yet at the centre, the

emergence of special interest groups, different occupational classes, engaged in the

ceremonial legitimizing of social inequality supported the growth of a state religion, state

bureaucracy and military force (Johnson and Earle, 1987). By the early seventh century,

according to the Sui Shu the state of Funan had some 30 ceremonial and administrative

centres whose names ended with pura (city) with populations of around 3,000 adults

(Wheatley, 1983: 126 127).

Funans ceremonial legitimizing is evident in its origin myth identifying a certain

Kaundinya, an Indian, who around the end of the 1st

century AD allegedly married a

local princess to establish a ruling elite. The Chinese records of the Liang dynasty

(written in the 7th

century AD) state that Kaundinya gave his male descendants control of

seven dependent settlements, perhaps indicating development of the concept of a

centralized authority structure in the bureaucratic record. George Coedes has pointed out

that the mythical event onto which the first century AD historical events were grafted is

identical with that of the Pallava kings of Kanchi in southern India (Coedes, 1975: 38).

Further Chinese missions took place in 285 287AD suggesting that Funan was a place

of interest to the Chinese rulers. Funan is said to have sent an embassy to China itself

following the visit of Kang Tai and Zhu Ying. From the Chinese records we also gain

a picture of dynastic friction, assassinations, takeovers and military expeditions. One

Funanese leader known to the Chinese as Fan Shih-man mounted raids against his

neighbours, then undertook a waterborne expedition to subdue some ten chiefs along the

shores of the Gulf of Siam. Fan Shih-mans son in turn was displaced by another

successful military leader, Fan Chun, the son of his fathers sister. It is likely, as Vickery

(1998) has suggested, that here we see an example of the older matrilineal inheritance

structure asserting itself against an attempt to impose patrilineal descent in accordance

with the new Hinduistic legitimising rituals. The records state that the last king of Funan,

38


39/115

known as Rudravarman, had to flee his capital after its investment by neighbouring

Chenla. Briggs considers that Funan may have lingered on from another site in the south

of the delta, possibly Oc-Eo, until 627AD, although this view is not widely held.

This loosely knit empire as Quaritch Wales (1965: 10) envisaged Funan to be,

benefitted economically from its position on the international trade routes, and fostered

good international relations with both India and China. Thus in 240AD an embassy is

said to have been sent to a king in the Ganges valley in India who responded with an

embassy bringing four horses from the Indo-Scythian region. A Chinese embassy in Fu-

nan at the time confirms the gift of the horses from Central Asia, discusses Funans trade

and states that oar-propelled boats were built in Funan for the inland river trade. In

268AD Funan and Lin-yi, a forerunner of Champa on the coast of Vietnam, sent tribute

missions to negotiate with the Chin Emperor (Wang Gungwu, 1998: 34) and were able to

take advantage of the resurgent seatrade after 280AD to send further missions to meet the

Chinese demand for luxury goods, kingfisher feathers, tortoise shells, corals and pearls in

the northern cities of the empire. In 284 287AD they joined with some twenty other

polities of the Nanhai to send tribute and resume normal trade relations with China

(Wang Gungwu,1998: 34). They benefited economically from this resurgent trade which

continued until 300AD when renewed turmoil in northern China lost the Empire its

wealthiest cities in the northern territories. Turmoil in southern China after 322AD

coincided with a significant reduction in trade missions from the Nanhai, only three being

recorded between 300 and 400AD, all from Lin-yi.

Wang Gungwu suggests that the ships used for these missions may have been

Funanese ships, described by Kang Tai as eight Chinese feet long and six feet broad,

with bows and stern like fish, the large ones able to carry one hundred men with each

man carrying a long or short oar or a boat pole. However, Fan Chans envoy to Bengal,

sailed in an Indian ship up the Ganges. A Chinese record from the end of the third

century AD describes the ships of men from foreign lands as being over 200 feet long,

twenty to thirty feet high above the water level and holding 600 to 700 men with cargo

capacity of 10,000 ho (about 10 pecks by the Chinese measure). The same source states

39


40/115

that the men from beyond our frontiers use four sails for their ships, connected to each

other from bow to stern; . . . when they sail, they do not avoid strong winds and violent

waves, and therefore can travel very swiftly. Wang Gungwu considers that these were

probably Indian ships sailing directly between China and India, or Indian-built ships of

the archipelago trading with China. Their performance was contrasted with the slower

and smaller Yueh and Chinese ships (Wang Gungwu, 1998: 38-39).

Kang Tais book mentions some ten states in Siam, Burma, the Peninsula and

other islands in the Archipelago with which trade was maintained until early Chin times.

In Funan he had met Chen Sung, from North India, on his mission to Funan. Whilst at

this time, China had direct trade with Ta-chin through South India, Ceylon, the

Peninsula states and Funan, in Kang Tais time that there was no direct trade with North

India (Wang Gungwu, 1998: 39). Wolters suggested that the real reason the Wu

government sent Kang Tai and Chu Ying to Funan was to learn more of Funans trade

with India and western Asia, that it was Funans links with the west, rather than Funan

itself, that interested the Chinese (Wolters, 1967: 38). Wolters notes the few references

in the Chinese texts of the third century AD to the products of Southeast Asia. He

considers that it was the luxury goods from western Asia available in Funans ports

which the Wu emperor wanted to secure for trans-shipment to the ports of southern

China. In the wake of the partition of Han China in the early third century, the northern

Wei dynasty had control of the overland trade route through Turkestan, thus denying the

Wu access to the normal supplies of these luxury items (Wolters, 1967: 39 40). In 226

and 284AD, Ta-chin sent missions to China, the first to the newly established kingdom

of Wu, the second after the reunfication of China under the Chin emperor. The timing

implies that the missions were seeking assurance from the new authorities of the

continuance of trade and protection of merchants at Chinese ports (Wang Gungwu, 1998:

40). However, the trade with Ta-chin was smaller than that with Funan and Lin-yi

whose ruler, Fan Wen, travelled with a merchant mission to China in 313 316AD and

brought back to Lin-yi knowledge of Chinese court architecture, fort building, town

planning and manufacture of tools and weapons. In the fourth century, Lin-yi is said to

have brought valuable goods to China by sea, a situation which continued until 347AD,

40


41/115

when Fan Wens conquest of Jih-nan initiated a period of fourteen years of warfare. The

sea trade from Tongking was disrupted, and merchants passed directly to Canton instead.

During Wu times, Funan was the most important state between China and India, master

of the Gulf of Siam and all the lands of Cochin China to the Peninsula.

The entrepots on the Peninsula, Funanese dependencies, grew wealthy and

important on the basis of their location on the international trade route. Whether

traversing the Isthmian states such as Tien-sun (Tenasserim) which came under Funan

hegemony in the second century AD, or sailing directly to India through the Straits of

Malacca after calling into the Funanese port of Chu-li at the southern end of the

Peninsula, the east-west trade passed through Funanese territory. Funans importance to

the Chinese was undoubted. At the Chinese

H. James - Trade Culture and Society

Documents

Transcript of H. James - Trade Culture and Society