A Partial Prehistory of the Southwest Silk Road: Archaeometallurgical Networks along the Sub-Himalayan Corridor

Abstract

Historical phenomena often have prehistoric precedents; with this paper we investigate the potential for archaeometallurgical analyses and networked data processing to elucidate the progenitors of the Southwest Silk Road in Mainland Southeast Asia and southern China. We present original microstructural, elemental and lead isotope data for 40 archaeological copper-base metal samples, mostly from the UNESCO-listed site of Halin, and lead isotope data for 24 geological copper-mineral samples, also from Myanmar. We combined these data with existing datasets (N = 98 total) and compared them to the 1000+ sample late prehistoric archaeometallurgical database available from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Yunnan. Lead isotope data, contextualized for alloy, find location and date, were interpreted manually for intra-site, inter-site and inter-regional consistency, which hint at significant multi-scalar connectivity from the late second millennium bc. To test this interpretation statistically, the archaeological lead isotope data were then processed using regionally adapted production-derived consistency parameters. Complex networks analysis using the Leiden community detection algorithm established groups of artefacts sharing lead isotopic consistency. Introducing the geographic component allowed for the identification of communities of sites with consistent assemblages. The four major communities were consistent with the manually interpreted exchange networks and suggest southern sections of the Southwest Silk Road were active in the late second millennium bc.

Late prehistoric and early historic chronology of Myanmar: a four-millennia sequence from Halin

“…2020), Vietnam (Pryce et al 2021) and Yunnan (Yao et al 2020;Higham 2021). This close chronological patterning indicates that north-central Myanmar was tightly integrated within broader regional interaction networks of the late second millennium BC, as exemplified by early metal exchange networks (Pryce et al 2022;2023).…”

“…The combined data presented here do indicate, we argue, that Myanmar experienced interactions with East Asia during the Neolithic that differed from those of the rest of MSEA, seemingly dominated by the migration of Austroasiatic speaking populations into Vietnam and Thailand. This potential for variation in MSEA cultural transmission pathways and chronologies is also indicated for the Bronze Age transition, with metal provenance research showing the likelihood of direct contact with Yunnan as well as indirect contact with Thailand and Laos in the late second millennium BC Pryce et al 2018bPryce et al , 2021Pryce et al , 2022Pryce et al , 2023.…”