Metal artifacts in Southeast Asia challenge long-held archaeological theory

The site made headlines in January 2008, when thousands of artifacts from the Ban Chiang and other prehistoric sites in Thailand were found to be in the collections of at least five California museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Mingei International Museum, the Pacific Asian Museum, the Charles W. Bowers Museum, and the UC Berkeley Art Museum. The complex plot functioned as a crime ring and involved smuggling the items out of Thailand into the US, and then donating them to museums in order to claim tax write-offs. There were said to be more items in US museums than at the site itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Chiang

During some periods Bronze in much of Laos and far northern Thailand was at least partly alloyed with tin from Gejiu in Yunnan to the north.

In terms of logistics: geologically, most tin in northern Thailand / southern Laos is much further west along the Myanmar border or in deep mountains on the Laos/Vietnamese border which (either requiring a long overland journey or an upriver trip toward Ban Chiang / Vientiane) is a lot harder to access than just floating down the Mekong from Yunnan.

In terms of supporting archaeology: Dong Son bronze drums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dong_Son_bronze_drums.JPG Note the density of findings directly downstream of Gejiu in the Red River valley which flows to Co Loa / modern Hanoi.

> archaeologists of a traditional bent tend to have a particular thought structure called essentialism, which means that they do everything they can to come up with a coherent story according to a progressive view of social change. They keep looking for and exaggerate specific evidence to fit that progressive model. Southeast Asia is different. It offers an outstanding example of bottom-up social change, of community-level decision making. It’s a chance to study prehistoric societies in a more granular way, and it’s a fundamental shift for archaeologists. We’re still early on in trying to promote this different point of view and in using metals as a vehicle to gain this perspective.

Summary seems to be that testing the metals of different regions showed evidence of community trading not facilitated by ruling elites?