Letter From thailand

Fragments of giant teak coffins of the Log Coffin Culture of northern Thailand cover the ground of Ban Rai Rock Shelter. Mystery of the Log Coffin Culture Recent investigations raise more questions about an enigmatic people

hailand’s far northwestern by Karen J. Coates But then, as now, much of the area’s corner is rippled with moun- archaeology remained unexcavated Ttains, lush at their bases of 15 giant teak coffins where a and poorly understood. and craggy on top, where the lime- little-known culture left their dead This is clearly evident in the case stone outcrops graze the sky. This more than a thousand years ago. of the Log Coffin Culture. There are landscape stretches for hundreds Some 600 miles northwest of more than 60 coffin sites in the Pang of miles through villages of ethnic Bangkok, this undulating terrain, Mapha district of Mae Hong Song Shan and animist hill tribes that crisscrossed by rivers, has a climate province, evidence of a culture that farm their fields on both sides of the cooler than that of Thailand’s flat flourished between 2,100 and 1,200 Thailand-Burma border. Clusters plains to the south. Known as the years ago. Many of the sites are of bamboo-and-thatch huts cling to “lime hills” in the Shan language, high on open-air ledges or tucked the mountainsides. I’ve traveled here the region has yielded some of inside caves, and often require before—pursuing stories as well as Thailand’s most important archaeo- mountaineering gear and dangerous fresh air and lazy vacation days— logical finds, including the oldest climbs to reach. and the people have welcomed me wood carving in the country and the Most of what archaeologists with sticky rice, tea, and stories of earliest human remains in northern know about the coffins comes from their ancestors. This time, I am visit- Thailand. American archaeologist the Highland Archaeology Project ing Ban Rai Rock Shelter—better Chester Gorman began investigat- supervised by Rasmi Shoocongdej, known to locals as Tham Pi Maen ing this area in 1965, and found a short, sprightly, fast-talking or a “spirit” cave—500 feet up from seeds of domesticated plants dating scholar with Bangkok’s Silpakorn the valley below, to see the remains between 11,000 and 8,000 years ago. University. Rasmi is one of few www.archaeology.org 49 An ancient log coffin still stands high on a cliff in Coffin Cave. There are more than 60 log coffin sites in the Pang Mapha region of northern Thailand.

become more complex over time, and that different styles were employed simultaneously, leading the research- ers to suggest the carving styles might reflect the status or ethnic affiliation of the dead.

he Highland Archaeology Project finished excavations Tat Ban Rai and Tham Lod in 2006. Because she didn’t find any Log Coffin Culture habitation sites, Rasmi is still not certain where or archaeologists in Thailand to focus Most coffins are between 16 and how these ancient people lived—she on the country’s mountains rather 23 feet long, with some reaching only knows where and how they than its fertile lowlands. 30 feet, and most were originally buried some of their dead. Nor is she Between 2001 and 2006, Rasmi supported several feet off the ground certain whether Thailand’s modern and her team, which also included by cross beams. But today, many inhabitants are descended from the anthropologists, geologists, dentists, of the coffins and their supports Log Coffin Culture people. And now and forest scientists, excavated two have fallen. The wood is worn and that she is involved in a widespread coffin sites—Ban Rai and a nearby weathered, resembling the splintered effort to survey and preserve north- rock shelter called Tham Lod—and remnants of boats that have suffered ern Thailand’s many threatened surveyed dozens of others. Den- too many storms; the supports tilt archaeological sites, she has neither drochronology, dental analyses, and like broken piers. Human teeth and time nor money to excavate further DNA all were undertaken to study bone fragments, usually all that’s left in the area. the age of the coffins and their occu- of the coffins’ occupants, are scattered But Rasmi’s dedication to the pants, and further analysis examined in the dust and dirt around some region has not waned, and she the styles in which they were carved. of the coffins, giving the sites a very continues to work with locals to The Highland Archaeology Project eerie feeling. preserve the sites. She also wants began with so little information The ends of the coffins are carved them to understand the history at about these sites that researchers with headlike shapes, some with stake. Villagers have not viewed the hoped to answer basic questions. human facial features and others sites as their own, though they have Who were these people? Where did resembling animals. After years of deep-seated beliefs and superstitions they come from? Do they relate to weathering, many of these carvings about them. Traditionally they avoid the area’s modern-day inhabitants? are hard to make out and archae- the coffins, believing them to be the Who was buried in the coffins? ologists are not at all sure what the Many answers remain elusive. designs mean. One of the tree-ring Tree-ring studies showed that the studies conducted by Natsuda Pumi- teak logs used at Ban Rai were 80 jumnong of Mahidol University as to 100 years old when they were cut part of the Highland Archaeology down. They were then left to dry for Project tested the hypothesis that the a year, before each log was split in carvings became more complex over two and hollowed to form a coffin. time, indicating development in style The team also determined from the and technique. She examined more wood’s growth rings that the trees than 100 wood samples from dozens had come from level land rather than of coffins and supporting posts at Ban from the slopes around Ban Rai, so Rai, and 71 wood samples from cof- the Log Coffin people would have fins and supporting posts at a nearby A carving that appears to represent a had to lug those massive logs up to cave site called Bo Khrai. The dating dog’s head adorns the handle of a coffin the mountainside rock shelter. revealed that the carvings did not from Bo Khrai Cave.

50 Archaeology • September/October 2009 School of Archaeology Rasmi Shoocongdej is director & Ancient History of the Highland Archaeology Project, which is devoted to studying the Log Coffin Culture. Where archaeology and ancient history is exhausting, and a torrent of tropical sweat makes splotch- meet your world. es on my notebook. I can’t imagine many tourists mak- ing this trek to the coffins; it’s With the highest ranking for easier to raft the rivers and teaching and research and modules ride motorcycles on winding developed for the specific needs of highways before filling up distance learning students, supported on pad thai and Singha beer by top academic authorities, we’ll deepen your interest in your while relaxing at bamboo bars specialist area. and riverfront bungalows. “No, they don’t come up here,” admits Fon Nittim, a domain of Pi Maen, a term that refers student of prehistory and employee to the Log Coffin Culture and the of Rasmi’s working at Ban Rai, who coffin sites themselves. “Everybody is is accompanying me on my hike. “And Distance Learning afraid of Pi Maen log coffins,” says Jee Thai people don’t love to walk a lot,” programs Kamsuk, an ethnic Shan who lives she adds. in the fertile valley at the base of Ban By the time we reach the rock shelter, my shirt is drenched and I feel • MA in Archaeology & Heritage Rai. “When I was young I also was Accepted as a qualification for afraid,” he adds, “but now I am not slightly dizzy, but I am elated. It’s late members of RoPA afraid anymore.” afternoon. The sun begins to set and a • MA in The Classical Rasmi also notes that many pre- ghostly silence envelops the mountain. Mediterranean historic archaeological sites in this Fon says the people must have chosen region are especially vulnerable to this site for its height, “near heaven.” • MA in Historical Archaeology curious or careless tourists as the area The horseshoe-shaped cliff gives the • Postgraduate Certificates becomes more popular among rock appearance of a funnel to the sky, Build credits towards an MA climbers and adventure travelers. But shooting toward the gods. • Research Degrees that’s changing as her team promotes Bamboo fences and wooden ladders Introductory courses also available. sustainable tourism to help villag- from Rasmi’s excavations remain, but ers make money and preserve the the archaeologists are gone. The shel- sites and artifacts. She hopes if locals ter is littered with rotting and crum- learn to appreciate—not fear—their bling wood from the coffins. Although archaeological heritage, they will help some coffins have been taken to the protect it. Nowadays, locals can earn National Museum in Chiang Mai, Contact: 200 baht, about $5.70, each time they (“Off the Grid,” January/February Distance Learning Unit, School of guide a tourist to a coffin site. “We 2008), Rasmi later tells me that she Archaeology and Ancient History, want many people to come and see,” wonders how much longer the ones University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH says Jee’s neighbor, a woman named left in the rock shelter can last. It’s the United Kingdom. Da who runs a homestay for tourists dry season now, but I can see how Call: +44 (0) 116 252 2772 and Ban Rai researchers. “It’s peaceful monsoons have battered this site. Email: [email protected] and the scenery is very beautiful.” Fon leads me around the rock Visit: www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/dl shelter—about 345 feet wide, 465 feet limbing the mountain, my long, and 100 feet tall—pointing to Please quote ARCH09 in all communications. heart hammers as I cling to Rasmi’s excavation pits, which have Ca wooden railing recently revealed two distinct stratigraphic installed by villagers. The trail winds layers. Bones, tools, and other arti- through the forest, past ferns and facts associated with the coffins were smooth bamboo stalks, then suddenly found about one foot down. Two zigzags up and up and up. The ascent feet below that lay the skeleton of a

www.archaeology.org 51 Local villager Thi Moo sits in Bo Khrai Cave underneath one of the coffins that still sits on its supporting beams after more than 1,000 years.

like many of the hill tribes living in the region. But a Highland Archaeology Project study by Supaporn Nakbun- lung and Sukhontha Wathanawa- reekool of 467 human teeth col- lected from 16 sites determined that the coffin people had dental traits similar to Malaysians, Borneans, and other southeast Asians—not Chinese. Another theory, put forth by Srisak Vallibhodhama, a retired male dated to about 9,800 years ago, larger context in which Rasmi and professor of anthropology at Silpa- according to analysis of a charcoal Fon can place the finds. korn University, suggests the people sample found nearby. This man of the Log Coffin Culture are the clearly belonged to an earlier culture month later, after a series of ancestors of the Lua, an ethnic that flourished between 12,500 and telephone and e-mail con- group that has lived in northern 8,000 years ago. We walk to the Aversations, I visit Rasmi in Thailand longer than many others, cave’s walls and Fon points upward her Bangkok office on the Silpakorn although this culture’s history is also toward a few faint red depictions of campus. I squeeze into a cramped poorly understood. people. The paintings could be 9,000 little closet of a room brimming with or 8,000 years old, far pre-dating books and papers stacked as high as ut there is one man who has the Log Coffin Culture, but they are Rasmi’s head. “My home is also like no qualms imagining who the fading. I later learn from Rasmi that this. It’s really messy,” she chuckles. BLog Coffin Culture people Thailand has neither the facilities I ask Rasmi what exactly the Log might have been. John Spies is an nor the experts to date and preserve Coffin Culture was. “It’s really hard amateur geologist and paleontolo- ancient rock art. “I don’t know what to identify,” she tells me. “Boat cof- gist, and the resident expert on the to do,” she sighs. fins” similar to those in Pang Mapha area’s caves. The Australian émi- Two days after our hike, I have been found in the province of gré arrived in northern Thailand visit Fon in her office, which also Kanchanaburi, about 150 miles west in 1977 and never left. Spies has serves as a small museum near of Bangkok, as well as in other areas made these mountains his life and the start of the trail to Ban Rai. of Southeast Asia and China. But the caves his passion. Years ago, he She is unpacking little plastic bags no one really knows if the culture served as an official guide when of potsherds, animal bones, and relates to the modern-day residents members of the Thai Royal Family stone tools. Some of the potsherds, of Pang Mapha or to other Fon says, were found on Ban Rai’s early inhabitants of South- surface and some were found during east Asia. excavation around the coffins. Rasmi suggests, based Several pieces have diagonal and of the age of the coffins and cross-hatched decorative marks, discoveries of similar mor- which Rasmi thinks may have been tuary practices in southern made using bark, but she is unsure China, that the Log Coffin what kind. Small mammal bones people came from China, and those of a gibbon were found associated with the Log Coffin Culture remains, while rhino and Guide Sorn Chai points to deer were unearthed in a layer where archaeologists drilled a hole in a coffin support farther down. But without other in Jabo Cave to study the excavated sites to compare with wood, greatly distressing Ban Rai and Tham Lod, there is no local villagers.

52 Archaeology • September/October 2009 Jee Kamsuk sits in his home near Ban Rai Cave, explaining how the modern world and all its noise have chased away the ancient spirits.

team learned this at Jabo Cave, about 10 miles as the crow flies from Ban Rai, when a colleague drilled small holes into coffins to collect samples for dendrochronology tests. Ethnic Lahu villagers nearby heard noises and were startled to find someone tampering with the sacred site. “They didn’t let anyone know what they were doing,” says Jabo village headman Ja Ka Shay. The vil- lagers fined the researchers 15,000 baht, about $430, for disturbing the visited the massive cave at Tham of Sittipong Dilokwanich of Mahi- coffins and possibly inviting bad Lod. It was there, at a rock shelter dol University. Researchers collected spirits into the village. “We used the near the cave, that Rasmi’s team data on the area’s limestone topog- money to pay for two pigs and rice,” excavated the remains of northern raphy and mapped and investigated says Ja, “for a feast to send all the bad Thailand’s two oldest human skele- numerous Log Coffin Culture sites. spirits away.” Rasmi apologized to tons—both adults, one female and They recorded at least 50 different the villagers. “We should inform and one of indeterminate sex, each more coffin carving styles and discovered respect the community,” she says. than 12,000 years old. a human tooth bearing drilled holes “I think we handled it pretty well Spies remembers that his first plugged with metal, evidence of den- and we are good friends of the Jabo encounter with cave archaeology tistry. Spies’s own explorations have communities now.” Ja agrees. But in came while exploring the deepest located coffins, pottery, bones, stone retrospect he says he’d rather there reaches of Tham Lod in 1977. “Go in tools, and possible ancient habita- had been no drilling. “Better to leave there,” said a Shan woman pointing tion sites throughout the region. it alone,” he says. toward a dark hole in the wall. So he “These days, when I find something There are many others who can did. “Weathered sections of hollowed somewhere, I start thinking of a pat- attest to the powers of Pi Maen and carved logs, up to 21 feet long, tern,” he tells me. He believes he has spirits. Jee Kamsuk, the Ban Rai lay scattered in piles,” he wrote in his also found Neolithic cemeteries and villager, remembers the days when memoir, Wild Times. “Fragments more than 100 open-air, stone-tool he could hear Pi Maen voices in the of coarse pottery and broken bone sites scattered across ridges high trees. It was a sound “so soft, like littered the floor nearby. I found a above rivers. floating in the air,” he says. But that human molar and guessed we had Spies admits his brand of was a long time ago. The modern entered a burial chamber of people archaeology is free from academic world has come to northern Thai- who had lived in the area long before constraints—namely degrees and land, and with it noise. Electricity, the Shan.” Back then, scientific infor- peer-reviewed publications—and TVs, motorcycles—so much has mation was even scarcer than it is is far more open to speculation. He changed in the last few decades. Jee now. “It seemed that foreign and Thai looks around, considers the big pic- thinks chaos has disturbed the air archaeologists were either unaware ture, and imagines the past. He often and distressed the spirits. “There are of or uninterested in the prehistoric informs Rasmi of new sites—most so many modern things, I think Pi cemeteries,” Spies wrote. of which will remain undisturbed Maen doesn’t exist anymore,” he says. More than 20 years later, Spies inside caves or on rocky slopes until All that remain are the giant log cof- helped Rasmi with her research. In somebody comes up with the fund- fins along rocky ledges and nestled in 1998 and 1999 he also worked on a ing to document them properly. corners of serpentine caves. n two-year project sponsored by the Meanwhile, the science of archae- Thai Research Fund, a government- ology remains elusive to many locals, Karen J. Coates is a journalist who supported body established to pro- who regard the caves and coffins splits her time between Asia and the mote research, under the direction with spiritual reverence. Rasmi’s American Southwest.

54 Archaeology • September/October 2009