Posted on 01/15/2005 4:44:46 PM PST by blam
Aussies find bronze age canoe
January 14, 2005
AUSTRALIAN archaeologists have unearthed one of the oldest log canoes ever found in South-East Asia.
A team from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and conservators from the National Museum of Australia excavated a 2.5m section of the boat last month at Dong Xa, about 50 kilometres southeast of the capital Hanoi.
The boat was used for burial and contained the body of an adult.
It would have been about 10m long and was believed to have been used in the Red River delta area around 100BC by a people known as the Dongson, ANU's Peter Bellwood said.
"This was a bronze age culture, the people were quite well known because they manufactured very large bronze drums which often had designs on them, and many of the designs show these boats," Professor Bellwood said.
"We've only found one end of it. The end was chopped off and used for burial.
"It's one of the oldest surviving boats under conservation in South-East Asia."
Project co-ordinator Judith Cameron, a specialist in prehistoric textiles from ANU, said the adult's body was covered with a shroud and surrounded by pottery and a large amount of matting.
"These textiles will reveal a great deal about the material and structural composition of textiles and the role of cloth in burials by the Dongson people more than 2000 years ago," Dr Cameron said.
Samples of the textiles and the bark lid and wood of the coffin are being analysed in Canberra.
The team also excavated the grave of a young child at Dong Xa, and will return to Vietnam in December.
GGG Ping.
Very interesting! I didn't know that there was a culture in Southeast Asia that practiced burials in boats.
Although, I suppose it probably was a common practice in many cultures throughout history.
Fascinating. I wish I knew more about the subject.
(Ancient burial practices are incredibly interesting I think, they speak volumes about the way in which those cultures viewed death. I recall that an anthropology teacher I had once said that being buried in a boat indicates a belief that death leads to renewal. I might be mistaken though, I took that class many years ago.)
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Asian Vikings?
The Sutton Hoo burial ship in England dates from the 7th century, more than 150 years before the first Viking raids on England.
I think there is a strong possibility that proto-Celtic people came from SE Asia. Read the book.
"In Eden in the East Stephen Oppenheimer puts forward the astonishing argument that here in Southeast Asia was the cradle of civilisation that fertilised the great cultures of China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Crete six thousand years ago."
Uh Oh... zot time
Goodbye!
It floats??? Guess I's better start reading more than headlines
It always amazes me that wooden things can last that long. SE Asia isn't an area where I'd look for old wooden things. But burial makes sense. People with an intimate connection to the sea would certainly look to it as having some mystical aspects and death at sea would be common to them. Makes sense to bury important with some connection to water.
Do you have you Oppenheimers mixed up? Certainly the Celts were long before this canoe, though.
Yup...And, you probably wouldn't look in Florida for mummies either. 169 7-8,000 year old mummies...90 have complete brains...And, guess what, they're Europeans.
I sure do. I mean Stephen not Robert.
Robert was the commie (along with Claus Fuchs) who was instrumental in giving the Soviets our atomic bomb secrets in the 50's.
Technically Sutton Hoo was a buried ship, not a burial ship.
10m thats a pretty good sized canoe, an entire Family could have been buried in that. The Man/Woman must have been respected.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
I had no idea Hanoi was the capitol of Australia.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.