A team of archaeologists from Australia has uncovered evidence of an extensive trading network that operated in Vietnam from almost 4,500 years ago until nearly 3,000 years ago.
The study, conducted by archaeologists from The Australian National University (ANU), revealed a series of settlements across southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region that was part of an advanced manufacturing network and spanned hundreds of kilometers, as reported by the school’s news site.
The finding has been deemed significant in that it changes what was known up until now about early Vietnamese culture.
Dr. Catherine Frieman of the ANU School of Archaeology explained: "We knew some artifacts were being moved around but this shows evidence for a major trade network that also included specialist tool-makers and technological knowledge. It's a whole different ball game. This isn't a case of people producing a couple of extra items on top of what they need. It's a major operation."
Dr. Freiman, who is an expert in ancient stone tools, made the discovery when she was brought to Vietnam to study a set of ancient stone artifacts uncovered by researchers at the Rach Nui archaeological site in Kien Giang province.
She discovered a sandstone grinding stone that is believed to have originated from a quarry in the Dong Nai River valley, which is over 80 kilometers away from Rach Nui. These grinding stones were typically used to make stone tools such as ax-heads.
Dr. Frieman said: "The Rach Nui region had no stone resources. So the people must have been importing the stone and working it to produce the artefacts."
"People were becoming experts in stone tool making even though they live nowhere near the source of any stone," she added to the news source.
Dr. Phillip Piper, from the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology and an expert in Vietnamese archaeology, is mapping the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and agriculture in Asia.
He explained: "Vietnam has an amazing archaeological record with a number of settlements and sites that provide significant information on the complex pathways from foraging to farming in the region."
"In southern Vietnam, there are numerous archaeological sites of the Neolithic period that are relatively close together, and that demonstrate considerable variation in material culture, methods of settlement construction and subsistence," he said. "This suggests that communities that established settlements along the various tributaries and on the coast during this period rapidly developed their own social, cultural and economic trajectories."
Dr. Piper went on: "Various complex trading networks emerged between these communities, some of which resulted in the movements of materials and manufacturing ideas over quite long distances."
[Photo via Phys.org]
