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From the Director

by Ardeth Abrams

WhileJoyceiswhippingtheBanChiangMetalsVolumeintoshape,workingonherownStra-tigraphyvolume,andpreparingfor a spring trip to Thailand,Laos,andtheManilaIPPACon-ference,shehasagainaskedmeto write the opening statementofthisnewsletter. Joyce is honored to havebeen invited by the Ban Chi-ang National Museum and theTourism Authority of Thailandtopresenther3decadesofBanChiangresearchataseminarinFebruary2006.Themeetingisinconjunctionwiththecelebrationof Ban Chiang receiving UNES-CO World Heritage Site statusoveradecadeago. AlsointhenewsisournewThai Archaeology ChallengeGrant(seeSPOTLIGHTonthispage). Your contributions willbematcheddollarfordollar,allsupportingtheanalysisandpub-licationoftheBanChiangexca-vations. Currently FOBC fundssupportourworkontheMetals

F•O•B•C•

The Ban ChiangUpDATENewsletter for the

Friends of Ban Chiang

Preserving a UNESCO World Heritage Site Issue #13 Winter/Spring 2006

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324 http://www.museum.upenn.edu/banchiang

artist

--FR

IEND of BAN CHIAN

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aU

NESCO World Herit

age

Site

Examples of yourFOBC dollars at work!

uWe recently purchased a pro-fessional quality flatbed scanner to scan thousands of archaeolog-ical photographs, illustrations of artifacts and burials for our mono-graphs and archives.uAlso, a slide scanner was pur-chased to digitize thousands of BC slides and negatives for publica-

tions, monographs, the web, and our archives.uFOBC funds pay the salaries of scientist collaborators such as Eliz-abeth Hamilton and publications personnel such as Ardeth Abrams. uWe are currently saving up to hire a new editor assistant. This person will replace Christine Sher-man and continue the copy-editing and manuscript preparation of the Metals and Stratigraphy volumes.$

$$

Thai Archaeology Challenge IISPOTLIGHT

on John and Christie Hastings

Thai Archaeology Challenge II was established in July 2004 by long-time museum members and volunteers John and Christie Hastings. Contri-butions to this new Challenge will be matched up to $100,000. Dona-tions support publications of mono-graphs that document Ban Chiang’s metallurgy, stratigraphy, and pottery.

“From our many years of involvement with the Museum, we know that monographs presenting data from excavations are the primary means of preserving and disseminating the Museum’s accomplishments.”

—John and Christie Hastings

continued on page two

July 2004-June 2008Please help us reach our goal

of $200,000 by year 2008!

Ch

al

l-

o-

me

te

r2 $200,000

goal for 6-30-08

$175,000

$150,000

$125,000

$75,000

$50,000

$25,000

goal for 6-30-06$100,000

goal for 6-30-07

TAC-II donationsreceived as of 2-06

TAC-II start dateJuly 1, 2004

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monograph(seeFunwithMetal-lurgy.) This issue of UpDATE alsohas volunteer perspectives onthe MMAP 2005 expedition toLaos(supportedseparatelyfromBan Chiang by grants from theNational Science FoundationandtheNationalGeographicSo-ciety),newfacesinourLaband,for thefirst time inUpDATE,acrosswordpuzzlecreatedbyourown seasoned volunteer, BillHenderson!v

Fun with Metallurgy

an interview withDr. Elizabeth Hamilton

Dr. Elizabeth Hamilton has been working on the Ban Chiang metals analysis and monograph part-time for the Ban Chiang Project since the summer of 1999. Funds from Friends of Ban Chiang have supported her work since then. Elizabeth received her PhD from UPenn in 1995. Most of her pre-Ban Chiang research fo-cused on the archaeometallurgy of later prehistoric and early historic periods in Europe. She also has re-search interests in the anthropology of war. Elizabeth has taught a num-ber of courses at Penn and excavated at sites in the U.S., Germany, Egypt, India, France, and Iceland. Her dry wit periodically puts us in stitches.

AA: Elizabeth, in your best estima-tion, what is the current status of the Metals Volume?EH: It’s about 93% finished—butwhatweREALLYneedtodo

is chain Joyce toherdesk for afewmonthstofinishwritingHER chapters!AA:Give us an idea of your work ex-periences at the Ban Chiang Lab.EH:Studyingancientmetalsmaysoundliketheheightoftedium,butIhavehadalife-longfascina-tionwiththeingenuityofhumantechnology. That fascination(andmyAddams family viewoflife)helpmetoendurealotoftedious things—like gluing to-getherfragmentsofacorrodingiron artifact to discover a spearpoint; individually boxing, stor-ing with silica gel, and labelinghundredsofamorphousbronzefragments (probably castingdrippings); andendlesswritingand more writing in my office,my concentration perhaps aid-ed by its cinder block enclosedwindows.ItallseemsworthwhilewhenSamNash(MASCAvolun-teermetallurgist)andIcanhaveagreatdiscussionoverthemean-ingofaJacksonPollock-likepat-ternononeofSam’sspectacularphotomicrographsofa3500yearoldbronzesample. ThejourneyoftheBanChi-angMetalsvolume—fromsittingdown in front of a blank com-puter screen to the end prod-uct of 15-40 pages per chapterand a total of eight chapters inthebook—hasgivenmeagreatfeelingofaccomplishment.Evencleaningupandrearrangingthedatabases, and finally learninghow to create graphs with theBanChiangdatainExcel,havebeenrewarding!AA:As a scholar of metallurgy what were the highlights of your work with Ban Chiang Project?EH: Finding out abouthigh- tin bronze. It’s an

amazing alloy—copper with over20% tin—found in the Late Pe-riodofBanChiang(300BC–AD200).Ithasremarkablepropertiesand is physically abeautifulmetal.AA:Why is it so remarkable?EH: It isastonish-ing thediffer-

Tin production: during smelting, air is provided by two bamboo bellows. Illustrated by Ardeth Abrams.

Artist rendering of a socketed copper-base spear point from Ban Chiang.

Copper-base bangles from Ban Chiang.

0 2cm

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encethatquenchingfromahightemperature makes: it turns it[high-tin bronze] from a brightsilvertobrightgold.Theancientpeople of Ban Chiang used thismetal for thin wire-like necklac-es.Ican’tquiteimaginehowtheyhad so much control over thisbrittlematerial thatwas sohardtoworkwith. Also remarkable to me isthe conservatism of the bronzetechnology. The basic elementsoftechnologywereinplacefromtheappearanceofmetals(c.2000BC) and little change occurredoverthenext2000years.Wellofcourse iron appeared, but theyused the iron for very similartypes of artifacts—bangles andsocketedtools. It isalsoremark-abletomehowdifferentthean-cient metal technology of bothbronze and iron in Thailand isfromthatofChina.AA:What will you do when the book is finally published?EH: Sleep until 10am every dayAND resume my interruptedsearchforinnerpeace—hottubsandchampagne.v

MMAP 2005

An expedition to Laos Through Museum Volunteers’ Eyes

by Bill Henderson and Beth Van Horn

MMAP was supported solely by grants from the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation’s High Risk Archaeology Program.

Threevolunteers—BethVanHornandBillandBarbaraHen-derson—set off together fromPhiladelphiaonthesnowyafter-noonofMarch9th,2005tojointheMiddleMekongArchaeologi-cal Project (MMAP). Two dayslaterwearrived inbalmyLuangPrabangloadeddownwithtech-nicalequipment,satellitephones,GPSdevices,surveyors’vestsandaveryheavyflat-panelcomputerscreen thatBethsomehowman-agedtohand-carry.Weweremetat the airport by Joyce, who set-tled us into the Ban Lao guest-housewithShawnHyla(MuseumIT)andOliviaGiven(PennPhDstudent). WehadadaytoexperienceLuangPrabangat leisure in thehaze of jet-lag, then started ourfirst task of assembling, sortingand labeling field equipment.BethorJoycebeganalmostdailyruns to theairport via “tuk tuk”(motorcycle taxi) to fetch morearchaeologists, and our interna-tional team grew. Soon we allmovedintothetidylittlebuildingbehind the Luang Prabang Pal-ace Museum toset up MMAP’slabfacilities. The task ofMMAP2005wasto do rapid sur-veysofthreeMe-kongRivertribu-taries in LuangPrabang prov-ince in searchofsitesfromtheMiddle Holo-cene (c.6000-2000 BC) andpotentialprecur-sors to the BanChiang tradi-tion. Because

the MMAP teams used mobileGIS (Geographic InformationSystem)anddigitalphotographyto record sites, they were ableto cover a lot of ground and tobringbackarichdatasetandsur-faceartifacts from56promisingsites.Theirproductivityledtoalotofvolunteer“opportunities.” We spent hours enteringdata into laptops, downloading

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Middle Mekong Basin and the 3 Mekong tributaries—the Ou, Seuang, and Khan Rivers—surveyed during MMAP 2005.

Bill and Barbara Henderson organizing field equipment in the lab at the Palace Museum.

continued on next page

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data from field team hand-heldcomputers,washingandlabelingartifacts,andphotographingpar-ticularly interesting objects. Inour “spare” time we worked onentries for the web log that was(andstillis)postedtotheMuse-um’sMMAPwebsitewww.museum.upenn.edu/mmap. Again we hadthe chance to wander throughLuangPrabang,butnowwewereon the hunt for the best-pricedAA batteries and bottled watertokeepthefieldequipmentandteamsgoing. Eachofus,inturn,alsohadthe chance to ride with a fieldteamdowndustyroads,toseethelocalvillagesandtotrektoafewof thesitesalong theNam(Riv-er) Seuang that was being sur-veyed.Billwentoutonacoupleofthemoredauntinghikeswiththeteams,andshotmanyhoursof video footage to documenttheproject. Our culture shock was sur-

prisingly limited and was ofteneasedbyourLaocolleagues.Lu-ang Prabang is still pretty quietby Western standards, althoughitwasrecentlynamedaUNESCOWorldHeritagesiteandisdraw-ingmoretouristseveryyear. Aquirky sight on the main streetwasinternetcafésfulloftouristssittingsidebysidewithBuddhistmonks in saffron robes, all in-tentlycheckingemail. Thefoodwasquitegood,es-peciallyattherestaurantswhosemaincustomerswere local.Onebig surprise involved a dinnerforfivethatcostaboutUS$5.60!Laos is a cash-poor country anditwelcomesUSdollars, yetpric-eswere lowon just aboutevery-thing. Moneychangers were al-waysconvenient,butwelearnedto change no more than $20 ata time. Our money belts werestuffed very quickly because wegotmorethan10,000LaokiptothedollarandthelargestLaobillis20,000kip($2)! Allinallitwasaveryinterest-ingandpleasantexperience.Bethhopestoreturnforafutureseason,butBillandBarbaraprobablywilljust follow the MMAP blog fromthecomfortofhome.v

Recent Publicationsthat use data from Penn Museum’s

research in Thailand

Joyce White, Daniel Penny, Lisa Kealhofer, and Bernard Maloney 2003 “Vegetation Changesfrom the Terminal PleistoceneThrough the Holocene fromThree Areas of Archaeologi-cal Significance in Thailand.”Quaternary International (2004).113(1):111-132.

Joyce White and William Hen-derson 2003 “Pottery Anatomy: Re-view and Selection of Basic No-menclature as a Step Toward aSearchable Rim Form Databasefor the Sakon Nakhon Basin.”Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association23:35-49.

Joyce White and Chester Gorman 2004“Patterns inAmorphousIndustries: The HoabinhianViewed Through a Lithic Re-duction Sequence.” In Southeast Asian Archaeology: A Festschrift for Wilhelm G. Solheim II Edited byVictor Paz Quezon City: Univer-sityof thePhilippinesPress.Pp.411-441.

Joyce White 2004 “Comment on DatesfromaResin-coatedSherdfromSpirit Cave, Thailand.” Antiquity 78:184-187.

R. Alexander Bentley, Michael Pietrusewsky, Michele T. Doug-las and Tim C. Atkinson 2005 “Matrilocality duringthe prehistoric transition to ag-riculture in Thailand.” Antiquity 79(306):865–881.

Christopher King and Lynette Norr 2006 “Paleodietary changeamong pre-state metal-age soci-eties in Northeast Thailand: astudyusingbonestableisotopes.”InBioarchaeology of Southeast Asia. Edited by Marc Oxenham andNancyTayles.CambridgeStudiesin Biological and EvolutionaryAnthropology (No. 43). Cam-bridgeUniversityPress.v

Al fresco lunch for a field team, with a spectacular view of the Mekong River.

Beth Van Horn, with MMAP 2005 co-di-rectors Bounheuang Bouasisengpaseuth and Joyce.

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vLevels of Giving:over $1000 Bronze Castor$500-999 Pottery Painter$100-499 Iron Smith$25-99 Stone Carver

vSend to:Friends of Ban ChiangUniversity of Pennsylvania Museumof Archaeology and Anthropology3260 South StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6324

vFrom March 20-26, Joyce andOliviaGivenwillbeattendingtheIndo-Pacific Prehistory Associa-tion meetings (IPPA) in Manila,Philippines. Joyce has organizedasymposiumoncurrentarchaeol-ogyinLaos.vOn September 21, 2005 Joycespoke at the Museum “Research and Refreshments” (R&R) fo-rum.Morethanthirty-fivecametohearhertalk,“Don’tStepontheBombies! Exploratory Survey inLaos,”inwhichshecoveredhigh-lightsofMMAP2005.Shawn Hyla(Museum IT) and Olivia Given

alsospokeoftheirMMAPexperi-ences.Thanks to all who attended! vIn March 2004, Joyce was theguestspeakerforThai Night,spon-sored by the Thai Students Asso-ciationatPenn.vJoyce visited the village of BanChiang during the celebration ofUNESCO World Heritage Day in2003.ShewasthrilledtoseethattheBan Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age exhibitthatsheputto-getherwiththeSmithsonianInstitu-tionin1982wasstillbeingstudiedbyThaistudentsandvisitors!vChureekamol ‘Soi’ Onsuwan married fiancé Pete Eyre in a fif-teen hour ceremony in Bangkok,Thailand on March 9th, 2003. Itwas a beautiful wedding attend-

ed by Joyce, Vince Pigott, Judy Voelker, Chris King, and Rasmi Shoocongdej.SoiisfinishingherPhDdissertationasthisnewslettergoestopress.vChristopher King collected ed-ibleplantsnearBanChiangwithJoyce in March 2003 for his dis-sertation on Ban Chiang ancientdiet.Readingchemicalsignatures(suchasisotopes)thatarepassedfrom the foods consumed to theskeletonallowsthedocumentationof the ancient diet. He is nearlyfinished his study of bone chem-istryofBanChiangskeletonsforhisPhDattheDepartmentofAn-thropology, University of Hawai’iatManoa.vInJuly2005,wesaidareluctantgoodbyetoassistanteditoroftheBan Chiang monographs, Chris-tine Sherman.ShehasresettledtoPeoria,ILwithherhusbandGarryandtheirdaughterMaryMargaret,soshecanbeclosertoherfamily.Good luck, Chris, we miss you!vT. Oliver Pryce, a.k.a. Oli, aPh.DstudentfromtheInstituteofArchaeology University College,London visited the Ban Chianglab in December 2005. He washere to lookat thePhuLonslaginMASCAfor laterstudyinLon-don.Oli isdoinghisPh.DunderVince Pigott. He also gave someveryhelpfulfeedbackfortheMet-alsVolume.

LABnotes

Renew or Join FOBC(Friends of Ban Chiang)

Enclosed is my tax deduc-table contribution of $ . I would like to renew my sup-port with a $ contribution. please make checks payable to the

TRUSTEES OF THEUNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

I would like more informa-tion about the Ban Chiang Project.

I have changed my address. See new address above.

Is it time for you to

renew your support of

the Ban Chiang Project?

Every contribution is

gratefully received!

address

city,state,zip

name

email

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Olivia Given isaPhD student inthe Anthropol-ogy Departmentat the Universityof Pennsylvania.Her research in-terests includethe prehistoricarchaeology ofmainlandSouth-east Asia, land-

scape and settlement organization,computerapplicationsinarchaeology,GIS, cultural heritage management,andusingarchaeologyandITtopro-mote economic development. Oliviaalsohasaprofessionalbackgroundindatabase programming, IT support,andinternationaldevelopment.

Beth Van Horn has vol-unteered withthe Ban Chi-angProjectfortwoyears.Sheretired from

Verizonin2003,whereshewasanewproductmanagerintheMarketingde-partment.BethwasresponsiblefortheMMAPwebsiteandtheinternet‘blog’thatfollowedtheteam’sprogress,www.museum.upenn.edu/mmap. A special thanks to Beth for all of her help with this newsletter!

Rita DeAngelo is ajunior at Penn. Shewas pleased to landthe position of BanChiang small findsartist last year. Cur-rently,clayspoonsareher priority. One by

one,Ritamakes apreciselymeasureddrawing of each artifact using pencilon graph paper. Then, she uses thatdrawingtomakeanillustrationininkwith the “stipple”method(usingdotsto illustrateanobject in threedimen-sions).WhenRitaisnotintheBanChi-anglab,chancesaresheisinAddamsHall,workingonherfineartsmajorordesigningsceneryforvariousPennthe-atergroups.

Russell Woo startedworkingwith“theGang”last year as a freshman.He is currently scan-ningphotomicrographsofmetalspecimensthat

willbeputonaCDandincludedwiththeBanChiangMetalsVolume.BornandraisedinTexas,RussellcamefromafartopursuehisstudiesatPennandtheWhartonSchool,under the jointdegreeHuntsmanProgramforInter-nationalStudiesandBusiness.

Sasha Renninger isafreshmanintheCollegeatPenn.Sheplansonmajor-

ing in Anthropologywith a concentrationin Archaeology. Sa-sha is theBanChiangProject Bibliographer.She enters new andlooksupoldresourcesonSoutheastAsiaand

compilestheminthebibliographicda-tabase. Sasha’s other school activitiesincludethePennMarchingBandandthe Ancient Studies House program.She is fromFarmington,PA,40milessouthofPittsburgh.BothofherparentsworkfortheNationalParkService,andshehasvolunteeredat3differentparksduringthelastsixyears,mostrecentlyasaninterpreterspecializinginthear-chaeologyatFortNecessity,PA.

Amanda Pollock iscurrently a junior atBryn Mawr, majoringin Classical and NearEastern Archaeology.OriginallyfromVentu-raCounty,CA,Aman-

dathinksshewillprobablyendupontheeastcoastaftergraduation.InhersecondyearasaBCvolunteer,shesays“itcontinuestobeagreatexperience,notonlyfortheopportunitytoseethepracticalsideofacareerinarchaeologyandanthropologyandworkwithsomeamazingpeople,butalsotoimprovemycopy editing skills and memorize theASAbibliographyrulebook.”v

A Ban Chiang Crossword Puzzle

by Bill Henderson

Across1. Type of decoration on pottery made by pressing things into wet clay4. UNESCO World Heritage Site in Thailand5. Another word for “stratum”7. Children were buried in this type of container at Ban Chiang8. Some pottery was decorated this way11. Many of these human/animal remains were uncovered at Ban Chiang12. Location with archaeological remains Down2.The process of uncovering a site3. A painted pattern found on pottery at Ban Chiang4. Abbreviation of Ban Chiang6. Important alloy found at Ban Chiang9. Some tools were made of this metal10. One thing an archaeologist does

FRIENDS of BAN CHIANG3260 South StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104-6324

Please visit the Ban Chiang website, www.museum.upenn.edu/banchiang

in the Ban Chiang LabCrossword puzzle answersACROSS 1. impressed 4. BanChiang 5. level7. jar 8. painted 11. bones 12. siteDOWN 2. excavate 3. swirl 4. BC 6. bronze9. iron 10. digs

New Faces