Excavations at Banyan Valley Cave, Northern Thailand: A Report on the 1972 Season

Abstract

With the field records and artifactual materials recovered from Banyan Valley Cave in northern Thailand, it is now possible to reliably correlate lithic, ceramic, and other cultural materials with the general stratigraphic layers from which they derive. An earlier Hoabinhian occupation at the cave was replaced by a later occupation associated with neolithic elements, including pottery and rice. There is some overlap among the elements through time, a pattern also noted at Spirit Cave in the same general area. This suggests that there is some continuity in the expression of Hoabinhian throughout the Holocene in parts of Thailand. KEYWORDS: Southeast Asian prehistory, Hoabinhian, Holocene cultural chronology.