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Prehistoric iron production technologies in the Upper Thai-Malay Peninsula: metallography and slag inclusion analyses of iron artefacts from Khao Sam Kaeo and Phu Khao Thong

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Abstract

This article presents a preliminary attempt to characterise Upper Thai-Malay Peninsula prehistoric iron technologies based on assemblages from two recently excavated coastal sites: Khao Sam Kaeo and Phu Khao Thong. These are the earliest known sites involved in the early trans-Asian exchange that connected the eastern Indian Ocean to the South China Sea from the mid-first millennium bc. It is from this period that iron assemblages start appearing at both continental and insular Southeast Asian sites. Three models have been offered confronting an indigenous vs. Chinese or South Asian impetus for the introduction of iron metallurgy in Southeast Asia. These models are discussed in the light of the metallographic and compositional analyses of iron and slag assemblages from these two sites using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry, energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence and slag inclusion analysis techniques, together with other production materials from these and other contemporaneous Southeast Asian sites.

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Acknowledgements

The analytical work in this paper was carried out by Lynn Biggs for her dissertation, submitted in partial fulfilment of the M.Sc. in Technology and Analysis of Archaeological Materials at the UCL Institute of Archaeology (Biggs 2009). Support and guidance from Thilo Rehren, assistance from Kevin Reeves and the rest of the laboratory technical team, and advice on metallography from John Merkel are all gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCL Institute of Archaeology, London, WC1H 0PY, UK

    Lynn Biggs & Marcos Martinón-Torres

  2. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Mondes iranien et indien, Ivry-sur-Sine, 94202, France

    Bérénice Bellina

  3. UMR 208 “Patrimoines Locaux”, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Paris, 75005, France

    Thomas Oliver Pryce

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  1. Lynn Biggs
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  2. Bérénice Bellina
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Correspondence to Lynn Biggs.

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Biggs, L., Bellina, B., Martinón-Torres, M. et al. Prehistoric iron production technologies in the Upper Thai-Malay Peninsula: metallography and slag inclusion analyses of iron artefacts from Khao Sam Kaeo and Phu Khao Thong. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 5, 311–329 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-012-0115-2

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