IAMS Beno Rothenberg Memorial Lecture 2025

The Hunt for Ancient Metalworkers and the Prehistory of the sub-Himalayan Silk Road

Abstract

On the occasion of the British Museum conference, “Metals and mines: studies in archaeometallurgy”, in honour of Paul Craddock’s retirement in 2005, Vincent C. Pigott and Roberto Ciarla laid out a detailed argument “looking north” for the Chinese derivation of early Southeast Asian metal technologies. While the general idea of a Chinese origin for copper-base metallurgy was already widely accepted, usually on the basis of ‘trade and exchange’ relations, Pigott and Ciarla constructed an evidential trail, largely-based on the typology of metal objects and metallurgical paraphernalia, for a mid-late 2nd millennium BC routing via Lingnan, or southeastern China. Such was regional thinking as the present author was completing his PhD at University College London, which was added to by Joyce White and Elizabeth Hamilton with their late 3rd/early 2nd millennium BC proposal for a technological transmission via southwest China. This latter path more closely follows historical Southwest Silk Roads but reliable datasets on both sides of the border were greatly lacking.

Two decades later and the quantity and quality of data have massively increased, permitting more nuanced interpretations of long-term relations between Southeast and East Asia. Here I review recent Southeast Asian radiocarbon data, particularly from Myanmar, and compare them to the latest dates from southern China; demonstrating a chronological contiguity that does not require any interpretative acrobatics. This will be followed by laying out 17 years of research by the Southeast Asian Lead Isotope Project, which has constructed complex links of copper supply and demand, which spread across the region from the late 2nd millennium. Recent community detection analysis has exposed numerous sequential metallurgical transmission paths ‘looking north’ to southern Chinese origins. With the ever-growing Chinese dataset, we can now examine some of those putative exchange relations and interrogate what they might actually mean in terms of human interactions.

The lecture will be followed by a Reception in the Leventis Gallery of the Institute of Archaeology (ground floor).

Event recording

For those unable to attend in person, this event will be recorded on Zoom, please register for the Zoom link here.