ARC and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Fieldwork by Peter Bellwood, Marc Oxenham and Hsiao-chun Hung

April - 12 May 2009

The 1.5 hectare Neolithic site of An Son in Long An Province, Southern Vietnam, was excavated from 1 April - 12 May 2009. The team included staff and students from the Australian National University, the Centre for Archaeological Research in Ho Chi Minh City, the Long An Museum, the Institute of Archaeology in Hanoi, and members of the An Son village community. The site has been excavated several times previously by Vietnamese and Japanese archaeologists (1978, 1997, 2004, 2007), but the 2009 excavation was specifically targeted to an area on the edge of the mound where extended burials were found in 2004, and to another area where basal deposits 4.5 m below ground level had been exposed by earth movement. Seven new skeletons were discovered in 2009; three adults and a child in trench H1 and two neonates and an adolescent in H2. These burials, even the neonates, all contained grave goods, mainly pots, and are now being studied by Oxenham and PhD student Anna Willis. The material culture from the site is being analysed by PhD student Carmen Sarjeant, who has already quantified the data by layer. Five new C14 dates indicate that occupation started prior to 4000 years ago, and the material culture in general has stronger parallels with Greater Mekong Basin sites in Thailand than with sites in northern Vietnam. Many complete pots were found in the burials, and other material items included clay bow pellets, cooking stoves, shouldered stone adzes, large numbers of riverine shells and smaller numbers of marine bivalves, and an enormous quantity of animal bones including pig, bovid, dog, turtle and freshwater crocodile.