PC#92 Thailand, UNESCO site: Ban Chiang Archaeological Site,

This card shows an antique object from Ban Chiang Archaeological Site, one of 5 UNESCO sites in Thailand.

Stamp used is Asean joint issue stamp.

Sent: 8/8/2015

Arrived: 18/8/2015

Thank you so much dozchan!

Ban Chiang Archaeological Site

UNESCO site
Date of inscription: 1992

Ban Chiang is considered the most important prehistoric settlement so far discovered in South-East Asia. It marks an important stage in human cultural, social and technological evolution. The site presents the earliest evidence of farming in the region and of the manufacture and use of metals.

The Ban Chiang Archaeological Site is a prehistoric human habitation and burial site. It is considered by scholars to be the most important prehistoric settlement so far discovered in Southeast Asia, marking the beginning and showing the development of the wet-rice culture typical of the region. The site has been dated by scientific chronometric means (C-14 and thermo luminescence) which have established that the site was continuously occupied from 1495BC until c. 900BC., making it the earliest scientifically-dated prehistoric farming and habitation site in Southeast Asia known at the time of inscription onto the World Heritage List.

The Ban Chiang cultural complex is well-defined and distinctive from anything that preceded it. Through it can trace the spread and development of prehistoric society and its development into the settled agricultural civilizations which came to characterize the region throughout history which still continue up to the present day. Advances in the fields of agriculture, animal domestication, ceramic and metal technology are all evident in the archaeological record of the site. Also evident is an increasing economic prosperity and social complexity of the successive communities at Ban Chiang, made possible by torgheir developing cultural practices, as revealed through the many burials, rich in ceramic and metal grave goods, uncovered at the site.

The Ban Chiang Archaeological Site is also the richest in Southeast Asia in the number and variety of artifacts recovered from the site. As such, the property has been extensively studied by scholars as the archaeological “type-site” for the beginnings of settled agricultural communities and their associated technologies in the region.

Source: UNESCO