Ceramic production in northeast Thailand, 1500 B.C.--500 A.D

This dissertation presents a synthesis on ceramic technology and manufacturing processes at three prehistoric sites on the southern Khorat Plateau: Ban Lum Khao, Noen U-Loke, and Non Muang Kao in Thailand. These are multi-component sites that are occupied from the mid-second millennium BC to the late first millennium AD; this corresponds to the dating Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the region. Several lines of evidence including results from technological, petrographic, and compositional analyses have been utilized and integrated in this dissertation.;A survey to identify and sample clay sources within the project study area yielded 60 clay samples. Information obtained from this survey has provided a more complete understanding of the technological choices made by potters, as well as the available environmental resources near the study sites.;Findings of the petrographic analysis show that in the earliest pottery assemblages at Ban Lum Khao (ca. 1100BC) vessels are a mixture of local and non-local wares. Inferences from this analysis, when combined with other ceramic analyses, suggest possible migration into the area around 1100BC. Results also show that prehistoric potters used their local environment in adapting potting techniques and traditions.;The adoption of rice chaff as a temper to the clay matrix occurs during a transitional phase between the Bronze and Iron Ages. Temper is shown to be a diagnostic indicator of temporal change within the region. During the last occupation phase at Ban Lum Khao, rice chaff was first used as a tempering agent. By 200AD, at the sites of Noen U-Loke and Non Muang Kao over 90% of the pottery recovered from excavations was rice chaff tempered. This shift to the almost exclusive use of rice chaff temper parallels other changes at these sites including the introduction of “rice-bed burials” in mortuary contexts.