August 2020: This page needs updating! If you've completed a PhD Dissertation or Masters thesis in the past 10 years, please email acarter4@uoregon.edu to be added to this page.
Below are some recent dissertations on Southeast Asian archaeology. This list will be updated periodically, so please feel free to let us know about your recent dissertation or thesis.
Trade, Exchange, and Socio-Political Development in Iron Age (500 BC - AD 500) mainland Southeast Asia: An Examination of Stone and Glass Beads from Cambodia and Thailand.
Alison Carter
PhD in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Available online: https://sites.google.com/site/alisonkyracarter/dissertation
Abstract
This dissertation is an examination of trade and socio-political development in Iron Age (500 BC –AD 500) mainland Southeast Asia through the analysis and comparison of stone and glass beads from sites in Cambodia and Thailand. The primary research objective is to identify trade and interaction networks in mainland Southeast Asia during the Iron Age and understand how these trade networks were associated with emerging socio-political complexity in the Mekong Delta during this period. This topic was addressed through morphological, contextual, and compositional analysis of agate/carnelian, garnet, and glass beads. Using these objects I identified distinct patterns in the distribution of stone and glass beads on two different scales: within individual sites in Cambodia and Thailand and over time and across the region of mainland Southeast Asia. I then linked these bead distribution patterns to changing patterns of socio-political and economic organization in the Mekong Delta.
The results of this research indicate that the types of agate/carnelian and glass beads and the mechanics of trade and exchange changed over time. During the early Iron Age in the late centuries BC “Period 1 Type” agate and carnelian beads and potash glass beads appear to have been exchanged through a pre-existing coastal exchange networks between specific settlements. However, some communities, specifically people living at Angkor Borei and sites in the Mekong Delta do not appear to have been participating in this network. Instead, the analysis of glass and stone bead data reveal that the Mekong Delta and other communities were not entering into long- distance bead exchange networks until the early centuries AD, as trade with South Asia was intensifying. New types of beads, including “Period 2 Type” agate and carnelian beads and high- alumina soda glass beads eventually came to be traded in these networks. I argue that the distribution patterns of these new stone and glass bead types can be seen as proxies for expanding socio-political and economic influence between elites in the Mekong Delta and communities further inland.
Ideology, Identity and the Construction of Urban Communities:The Archaeology of Kamphaeng Saen, Central Thailand (c. Fifth to Ninth Century CE)
Matt Gallon
PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan
Contact email: mdgallon@gmail.com
Abstract
For the more than 12,000 years that humans have lived in permanent settlements, the majority of sedentary communities have had small populations where relationships based on kinship maintained order and provided group identities. The development of urban communities, whose populations far exceeded those of villages and hamlets, overwhelmed the ability of traditional kinship-based mechanisms to maintain social order. New types of relationships and identities that supplemented kinship ties were needed to unite and govern the residents of early urban centers. During the first millennium CE, the people of central Thailand faced these challenges as they underwent population nucleation, urbanization and increased political centralization. As part of this process, by the fifth century CE shared forms of material culture, artistic styles, religious ideologies and settlement plans began to spread among the communities of central Thailand and ultimately beyond, marking the development of the Dvaravati culture.
In this dissertation, I examine the origins and dynamics of Dvaravati urban communities from the perspective of regional-level relationships among centers, as well as the relationships between the residents within individual centers. I focus on the lower-order Dvaravati center of Kamphaeng Saen, where I conducted archaeological surveys and excavations to investigate the site’s chronology and spatial organization. This research revealed that the community formed relatively abruptly in the fifth century CE, likely as the result of the consolidation of several smaller villages, and was then abandoned by the ninth century CE, several centuries earlier than most other Dvaravati centers. I argue that the construction and use of the earthworks and Buddhist monuments at the site played a key role in the development of the community by fostering non-kinship based group identities, as well as allowing emerging elites to materialize ideological concepts that supported their authority. A regional-level comparison of the configuration of monuments at Dvaravati centers reveals increasing standardization of urban plans, which may have partly been the result of emulation and competition between the leaders of these centers. Finally, I compare how the origins and character of Dvaravati centers compare to urban traditions elsewhere in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.
The Ties that Bind: Population Dynamics, Mobility and Kinship during the mid-Holocene in Northern Vietnam
Damien Huffer
PhD in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University
Abstract
During the mid-Holocene in Northern Vietnam, domestic rice, dogs, and pigs were introduced into Southeast Asia by populations genetically derived from Central China who interbred and traded with indigenous populations. Mortuary practices also changed substantially, indirectly suggesting a change in social structure and migration between communities, as well as possible changes to activity and mobility patterns. To better understand how the adoption of agriculture and increased long distance exchange affected daily life at individual and community levels, this thesis utilizes the skeletal assemblages from Man Bac (c. 3,800BP) and Con Co Ngua (c. 5,600BP). They represent the largest and best preserved mid-Holocene samples from Northern Vietnam, and have been analysed elsewhere to investigate broader topics such as the population history of Southeast Asia, palaeohealth and dietary change during the purported Neolithic Demographic Transition.
To better understand how daily life changed during this poorly understood time period, three aims, with associated hypotheses, were proposed: 1) To better understand overall population mobility during the northern Vietnamese Neolithic transition over individual lifetime and diachronically by comparing strontium isotopic, musculo-skeletal stress marker (enthesis) and cross-sectional geometric data between individuals, sexes and samples; 2) To assess what relationship, if any, existed between social identity as reflected in burial treatment by kin at death, genetic kinship itself, and activity patterns; and 3) To investigate questions of community-level social organization, the special treatment in death of first-generation migrants, and sex-based differences in activity/mobility patterns within one community; the mid-Holocene site of Man Bac. Social structure was approached through genetic kinship assessed using cranial and dental nonmetric traits. Individual migration histories were approached through strontium isotopic analysis, as well as preliminary assessment of isotopic variation across the landscape. Mobility and activity patterns were assessed via standardized musculo-skeletal stress marker analysis, as well as external and medullary long bone cross-sectional geometry. The cross-sectional geometry research also involved creation of a new method to more accurately assess medullary contours without using CT Scanning.
Results suggest that the introduction of agriculture, as well as genetic heterogeneity in the case of Man Bac, did not result in a markedly different kinship structure, with both cemeteries containing small, unsegregated kin groups. Preliminary isotopic data indicates that first-generation migrants were present in both communities, but only males migrated into Man Bac, most of whom received high-status burials with exotic grave goods, and some of whom are suggested to have fathered locally born descendants. Diachronic comparison of the biomechanical data suggests minimal changes to type or intensity of activity or terrestrial mobility, suggesting that continued broad spectrum hunting and gathering (and hypothesized water-craft usage) outweighed the contribution of agricultural activities. Intra-community biomechanical analysis suggested different activity patterns for males and females in both populations. Although all results presented are preliminary, this research adds much to our current understanding of daily life during the agricultural transition in Southeast Asia. Beyond that, it demonstrates that significant insights into ancient social identity and community life can be gained by combining and comparing different strands of bioarchaeological data.
Human Skeletal Health and Dietary Assessment of Metal Age Central Thailand: The Impact of Changing Social Complexity and Regional Variation
Chin-hsin Liu
PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida
Contact email: chliuufl@gmail.com
Abstract
Increased social stratification and complexity are indicators of major socio-cultural changes for a prehistoric community. Human lifeways, general well-beings and diet in particular, is often directly impacted by these social processes, and may be reflected in mortuary contexts. In prehistoric times, central Thailand was an area with vast ecological and cultural diversity which subsequently became the epicenter of Dvaravati, a prosperous state and cultural entity of Dvaravati in early historic period. During the course of the Metal Age, archaeological evidence suggests that this area underwent gradual but significant changes in social and subsistence due to increased regional interaction, integration, and adoption of newly introduced cultigens.
Using paleopathological and light stable isotopic ratios, this study aims to delineate the impact of social complexity change on human skeletal health and dietary change through time on intra- and inter-site levels. Based on the assumption that people occupying different social strata having different access/preference to resources and practicing varied tasks, it is hypothesized that as social complexity increased (as evident in mortuary variability), the variation of human skeletal health and dietary composition also increased. In addition, this study assesses health life history and dietary pattern on a site level to be used in cross-regional comparison. Human and faunal skeletal remains from central Thai archaeological sites are incorporated.
The results indicate that no detectable health and dietary changes were associated with social status differentiation during the Metal Age in central Thailand. The lack of biological impact from social change is interpreted as either social status expressed in burial did not entail differentiation of resource access and daily tasks in life, or the inherent ecological variability within the region facilitated a tradition of highly inert and locale-specific human biology that endured the impact of social structure change through time. Previous archaeological, cultural, and biological research of Mainland Southeast Asia appears to support the latter interpretation. This study provides a large-scale regional synthesis on the interaction among social, ecological, and human biological aspects of Metal Age central Thailand that is beneficial for the further understanding of human lifeways and socio-cultural change in a larger Southeast and East Asian context.
The Buddhist Boundary Markers of Northeast Thailand and Central Laos, 7th-12th Centuries CE: Towards an Understanding of the Archaeological, Religious, and Artistic Landscapes of the Khorat Plateau
Stephen A. Murphy
PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Available online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/12204/
Abstract
This thesis focuses on the archaeological and art historic evidence for the earliest form of Buddhist boundary markers (sema) in Southeast Asia. Located in northeast Thailand and central Laos spanning the 7th - 12th centuries CE, they represent some of the earliest and clearest evidence for the emergence of Buddhism in the Khorat Plateau. The research looks at sema from three angles and approaches; their distribution throughout
the region, their artwork, and the different forms and types that exist. The distribution analysis recontextualises sema into their physical and cognitive landscape and in doing so traces the spread of the tradition into the Khorat Plateau, along the Chi, Mun and Mekong river systems. It divides sema into eight distinct clusters within the aforementioned river systems and analyses the relationship between sema and settlement patterns, particularly moated sites, as well as the distribution of sema artwork throughout the region. The analysis of the art and iconography of sema discusses the possible textual sources and the identification of narrative art. It analyses motifs such as stupa, stupa-kumbha and dharmacakras and proposes interpretations for these symbols. Also considered is the question of how much influence and appropriation there is from neighbouring Khmer or Dvaravati art and culture and the thesis attempts to identify a uniquely Khorat Plateau aesthetic for the artwork on sema. A typology is proposed which functions primarily as an analytical and research tool to aid archaeologists identify sema in the field. The problematic claim that sema arose out of a pre-existing megalithic culture is also discussed and the evidence for and against the theory is reviewed and debunked. In conclusion, this thesis illustrates that sema represent a unique form of evidence to explain the spread, nature and development of Buddhism in the Khorat Plateau during the Dvaravati period.
Ceramic Production and Craft Specialization in the Prehispanic Philippines, A.D. 500 to 16001.
Lisa C. Niziolek
Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago
Available on Lisa's Academia.edu page: http://fieldmuseum.academia.edu/LisaNiziolek. Also available upon request at lniziolek@fieldmuseum.org.
Abstract
In the millennium prior to Spanish contact, the political economies of lowland societies in the Philippines, such as Tanjay (A.D. 500-1600) on southeastern Negros Island in the central Philippines, underwent significant social, political, and economic changes. Foreign trade with China increased, the circulation of wealth through events such as ritual feasting and bridewealth exchanges expanded, inter-polity competition through slave-raiding and warfare heightened, and agriculture intensified. It also has been hypothesized that the production of craft goods such as pottery and metal implements became increasingly specialized and centralized at polity centers. Tanjay, a historically-known chiefdom, was among them. This dissertation examines changes in the organization of ceramic production using the results of laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry analysis of close to 300 ceramic samples. In addition to geochemical analysis, this research draws on Chinese accounts of trade from the late first millennium and early second millennium A.D.; Spanish colonial accounts of exploration and conquest from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; ethnographic research on traditional Philippine societies and ceramic production; ethnoarchaeological investigations of pottery production, exchange, and use; and archaeological work that has taken place in the Bais-Tanjay region of Negros Island for more than 30 years. Rather than finding clear evidence that ceramics became more compositionally standardized or homogeneous over time, this analysis reveals that a dynamic and complex pattern of local, dispersed pottery production existed alongside increasingly centralized and specialized production of ceramic materials.