The case for proto-Dvāravatī: A review of the art historical and archaeological evidence

Abstract

The mid-first millennium CE represents a crucial period in the emergence of early polities in Southeast Asia. However, disagreement remains between archaeologists and art historians as to the precise dating of this shift from prehistory to history. This article focuses on the Dvāravatī period and re-evaluates evidence in Thai and Western language publications. A growing number of sites excavated over the past two decades in particular show occupation from c. the fourth to fifth century onwards while others provide a continual sequence stretching back well into the Iron Age. I argue that evidence from these sites makes a strong case for postulating a proto-Dvāravatī period spanning c. the fourth to fifth centuries. In doing so this article proposes this period as the timeframe within which the nascent traits and characteristics of what becomes Dvāravatī in the seventh to ninth centuries are present and gradually developing.

From Late Prehistory to the Foundation of Early States in Inland Southeast Asia: a Debate

“…At NBJ occupation was restricted to IA4 and there are four phases, IA4a-d. IA4d here extends to about AD 700, by which time the occupants had adopted Buddhism and had a material culture closely matching that of the Dvaravati states of Central Thailand. Murphy (2016) has suggested that IA4 could, in fact, be known as the proto-Dvaravati, when the first signs of early states were evident in the archaeological record of the Khorat Plateau. According to the available radiocarbon determinations, occupation of the three Cambo-dian sites fall into IA3 with a possible extension into the early part of IA4.…”