Ban Chiang and Northeast Thailand; the palaeoenvironment and economy

Beginning with a detailed presentation of the faunal spectra from Ban Chiang and related sites in Northeast Thailand, this essay reconstructs the palaeoenvironment during the period 3500 BC to the end of the prehistoric period. The evidence from the freshwater molluscs found in prehistoric layers suggests that the first occupants of Ban Chiang encountered a habitat with permanent lakes and clear, slow moving streams. Since the lakes contracted in the dry season, there were ideal conditions for practising wet swidden agriculture. From c. 1600 BC, the presence of water buffalo and associated changes in the faunal spectrum suggests the inception of wet rice cultivation. Such agricultural intensification, it is held, follows population pressure and accounts for subsequent settlement in the more arid plains of Thailand.