Ban Chiang
Bronze working and rice farming in Southeast Asia, on their own timetable.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 800 years
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
The site of Ban Chiang in northeast Thailand documents settled rice agriculture and independent bronze metallurgy from around 2000 BCE, with distinctive painted pottery. The dating was hugely controversial when first published — early claims would have made it the world's oldest bronze — and has since been revised downward, but it establishes Southeast Asia as a metallurgical centre rather than a recipient of Chinese technology.