A History of Agriculture in India v1.c23.s5: Thailand
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c23.s5
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Thailand
v1.c23.s5.1
Chester Gorman⁵, in a review of the latest evidence from the mainland sites in Southeast Asia, including his own excavations in the Spirit Cave and at Non Nok Tha and Ban Kao in Thailand, has shown that the initial date for the Hoabinhian occupation culture might be placed in the Late Pleistocene, about 13000 to 14000 B.P., as the four ¹⁴C dates range from 455 ± 360 to 11690 ± 560 B.P. The oldest date derives from a mid-layer 4, and the samples from layer 5 are under analysis. The cultural and other remains continue until about 3500 to 3000 B.C. From here the story is brought forward by the two sites, Non Nok Tha and Ban Kao up to the historical period. Thus a unique time span from 12000 B.C. to 2000 B.C. is provided during which we witness "the shift from upland to lowland settlement and a concomitant shift in the subsistence base from hunting and gathering to early cereal agriculture."
v1.c23.s5.2
⁵ Gorman, Chester, "The Hoabinhian and after....," *World Archaeology*, February 1971, pp. 300-320
v1.c23.s5.3
It is worth noting in this context that 15 of the 18 sites cited by Gorman are located in the upland Karstic formations near small streams or in forest-clad submontane areas in close proximity to streams. An identical situation is found in Meghalaya (Garo Hills) and other hilly areas of Assam.
v1.c23.s5.4
The discovery by Gorman of Hoabinhian culture in Thailand dating back to 12000 B.C. confirms Carl Sauer's guess that the earliest agriculture was in Southeast Asia. Sauer states, "As the cradle of earliest agriculture, I have proposed South-eastern Asia. It meets the requirements of high physical and organic diversity, of mild climate with reversed monsoons giving abundant rainy and dry periods, of many waters inviting to fishing, of location at the hub of the Old World for communication by water or by land. No other area is equally well situated or equally well furnished for the rise of a fishing farming culture."