Mortuary rituals and social change from the Neolithic to the Iron Age in Thailand

Abstract

Disposal of the dead reflects decisions on many levels made by the living. Extensive area excavations in key sites located in Central and Northeast Thailand now present sufficient evidence for an assessment of social change over a period of ca. 3000 years, that began with late hunter-gatherers and continuing through the arrival of the first farming communities, their adoption of bronze metallurgy, to be succeeded by the Iron Age and its transition into early states. Throughout this ca 150 generational sequence, the men, women, infants and children were interred within settlements, usually in individual graves and associated with a range of mortuary offerings. These could be utilitarian, symbolic or exotica perceived as having intrinsic value. Dispersed, nucleated, and agglomerated burial patterns have all been identified, as well as graves within domestic houses. These patterns changed over time, but never indicated unidirectional progress towards increasing social complexity. By relating the pulses of change to the advent of new materials such as bronze and new climatic conditions, the evidence now suggests that the more nucleated the burials, the more likely they were to involve social aggrandizers. The most recent of these developed into the highly-ranked early states of Dvaravati and Chenla, where the aggrandizers were named and their actions recorded.