Ban Non Wat Archaeological Site

Thailand · Nakhon Ratchasima

SettlementIntermittent excavation
Approximate period1,750 BCE — 500 CENeolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age See on the map ↓

In brief

Ban Non Wat is a long-lived prehistoric site where settlement layers and numerous burials have been excavated together. Changes in grave goods are used to study the spread of metallurgy and social differentiation.

What was found?

  • 1Rich grave assemblages

    Numerous vessels, ornaments, and metal objects were brought together in some burials. Differences between graves allow changes in social inequality over time to be investigated.

  • 2Socketed copper-alloy axes

    Axes with sockets for inserting handles had been placed in graves. The fact that most of the early examples examined had not been hardened after casting is important for assessing their intended uses.

  • 3Shell and marble ornaments

    The beads, earrings, and bracelets include seashells brought from distant coasts. According to researchers, the marble also probably came from the Phetchabun mountains.

  • 4Ceramic grave offerings

    Vessels placed in rows in burials include painted examples and examples decorated with human faces. Fish remains in some vessels also document food offerings.

  • 5Domestic chicken bones

    Bones dated to 1.650–1.250 BCE were assessed in a 2022 study as the oldest remains definitively belonging to domestic chickens. The find reopened discussion of the history of chicken domestication.

What does it point to?

Grave offerings show that, with the arrival of metal, some individuals gained greater access to objects of distant origin. According to researchers, this privilege was not permanent; the chicken study, meanwhile, links domestication to the proximity between humans and animals that developed with rice farming.

What did it teach us?

  1. Made it possible to trace in detail the relationship between early metal use and social differentiation.
  2. Showed that inland communities obtained raw materials for ornaments from distant coasts.
  3. Contributed to the reassessment of some claims that chickens had been domesticated much earlier.

Latest news / selected archive

An international study published in 2022 identified chicken bones from Ban Non Wat dated to 1650–1250 BC as the earliest known definitive evidence of domestic chickens.

Record

Culture
Prehistoric communities of the Upper Mun Valley
First modern dig
2002
Team / historical
Research teams led by Charles Higham and Nigel Chang
Coordinates
15.2744°, 102.2689°

Sources

  1. cambridge.org
  2. news-archive.exeter.ac.uk
  3. en.wikipedia.org

Nearby excavations


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12.000

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