Earlier Bronze Age in Asia

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33581, 9 July 1974, Page 13

Earlier Bronze Age in Asia

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) SPOKANE, (Washington), July 8. The Bronze Age started in South-East Asia some 2000 years before it did so in the Middle East, according to a leading archaeologist. Dr Cary Carriveau, of the University of Pennsylvania, took part in a joint excavation in north-eastern Thailand last year. He said that he was one

of 15 men chosen for the project because of his background in archaeometry, the study of dating and analysis of artifacts and in prehistoric metallurgy studies. “Up to last year, it was thought the birth of bronze age metallurgy was in the Middle East and dated 2500 8.C.,” he said during a visit to Spokane. “In our excavation last year and through analysis of ceramic materials in association with bronze, we have evidence that there were bronze artifacts 2000 years before that date.” All indications from the

expedition changed the birth place of the Bronze Age from the Middle East to South-East Asia, Dr Carriveau said. The Bronze Age, which falls between two other prehistoric eras, the Stone Age and the Iron Ages, marks man’s transition from using stone tools to more sophisticated implements. Dr Carriveau said that expeditions this year had discovered similar bronze artifacts which might be even older than those found last year. “The exciting thing found in this year’s work were other bronze artifacts three metres below the excavating level at which we thought

were the oldest artifacts,” he | said. While Dr Carriveau said; that he hesitated to call his group’s specimens the oldest: bronze artifacts in the world. He felt that they were the oldest thus far excavated. “Because we have pushed the Bronze Age back at least 2000 years, our discovery should cause a rethinking between anthropologists and archaeologists regarding the I time and birthplace of the; Bronze Age,” he said. Dr Carriveau said that he would return to Thailand next year to develop a training programme for Thai students in dating and analysing archaeological discoveries.