Ban Non Wat: crucial research, but is it too soon for certainty?

Abstract

As Charles Higham so rightly states, chronology is a major key to unlocking the prehistoric past, perhaps even the master key. Most readers nowadays will agree that the chronologies for the inceptions of farming and bronze working in north-east Thailand, as put forward in the 1970s, were in error, for the simple reason that archaeologists at that time were prone to sending small scattered fragments of charcoal to C14 laboratories without really trying to understand exactly how and where the charcoal originated. I am sure I have been guilty of similar lapses, so apportioning blame is not on my mind and would indeed be pointless.