Summary

In Myanmar, from the Paleolithic to the early historic periods location has been an essential part of site layout and artifacts within wider cultural production. For all periods, there are issues of the classification and identification of implements that are complicated by multiperiod habitation. The result is frequent stratigraphic and artifactual ambiguity. Archaeological studies on the period from the Late Paleolithic to Neolithic eras have largely relied on artifact classification and minimally on the relationship to the local ecosystem. In many cases, hunter-gatherer foragers may have lived side by side with more sedentary groups who stored goods and stimulated a more hierarchical society. Archaeological research on the stone-using cultures began during the 19th century in tandem with colonial oil exploration. A pivotal 1943 survey was conducted of the geological terraces of the Upper Ayeyarwady River between Magway and Nyaung-U. This identified a Paleolithic culture utilizing fossil wood and river pebbles for tools dating to c.750,000 BP. The close link between environment and habitation strategies was matched in numerous Neolithic cultures that exploited natural resources at lowland open-air and cave sites. Near the Lower Chindwin, Upper Myanmar, associations with local resources are seen at Nyaung’gan, a bronze inhumation cemetery site of c.1500 bce on the rim of a extinct volcano. In a different way, local resources such as copper and soils determined the location of a series of bronze-iron mortuary sites in the plains of the Salween River (c.600 bce–300 CE) that flanked the Shan Plateau. These local chiefdoms exhibited status in abundant pottery and metal goods of burials. Mother-goddess figures and kye doke (bronze packets) representing bundles of fodder indicate a matrilineal ancestral culture engaged in incipient wet-rice cultivation. The subsequent emergence from c.200 bce of early urbanized Buddhist kingships and monastic communities continued in this agriculturally favorable landscape. Thus, for the period from the early stone cultures to the beginnings of the Buddhist societies that were expanding rice cultivation and interregional trade, understanding the local ecosystems is essential in accurately assessing the material culture.