Research & Article

This article reviews the third volume in a trilogy that assesses the metal remains from Ban Chiang in their regional context (White and Hamilton 2019). Having reviewed its contents, it addresses two scenarios. The first, advocated by White, favours a long chronology for both bronze and iron within a social context of small-scale communities with little social differentiation. The second supports a short chronology, that the strategically favoured upper reaches of the Mun River witnessed a rise in social elites, which coincided with the first evidence for bronze metallurgy, and a second in the early 1st millennium CE as a reaction to climatic aridity.