The first settlement is represented by five graves, in which the dead were interred in a crouched position. One of these early burials involved a child, whose skeletal arms still clutched his mother. These people could well have been local hunter gatherers, who lived on this low mound before 2000 BC. At that period, the region would have been covered in a dense forest, bisected by many streams. Wild cattle, water buffalo abounded, crocodiles and rhinoceros flourished, and tigers and leopards preyed on the herds of deer. Fish and shellfish supplied plentiful food at all seasons.
First Farmers at Ban Non Wat
It was into this rich habitat that the first farmers penetrated. From about 2100 BC, groups of rice farmers progressively moved south from the Yangtze valley, bringing their domestic cattle and pigs, and their techniques of weaving and fashioning superb pottery vessels. In the natural course of events, they founded a cemetery. Some of these early farmers were buried in large, lidded pots, decorated with complex incised and painted designs. Even infants were buried in fine mortuary jars, five being laid out round the body of a woman who was covered in pig skeletons and pottery vessels.Bronze Age Ban Non Wat
Such Neolithic sites are very rare in Southeast Asia, but after about six or seven centuries, knowledge of alloying copper and tin, and casting objects of bronze, began to pass from Southern China, along the established trade routes. At Ban Non Wat, this led to a major cultural change. Some individuals were now buried with very great wealth and ceremony. Perhaps these rich aristocrats were able to command the supply and distribution of the precious new metal, for we find bronze axes, bells and awls only with the richest people. Nor were bronzes only found with adults. Some infants were placed in graves up to four yards long, with thousands of shell beads, shell and marble bangles, up to 25 pottery vessels and bronze axes. Some of the fine ceramics were embellished with complex painted designs. One seems to portray a stylized human face with eerie eyes looking up from the grave.Some of these very rich individuals were first buried with all their finery, and then their bones were exhumed before being carefully replaced in the grave. Could it be that the ancestors were being removed for special ritual functions, perhaps feasting with and for the dead?
Not all the Bronze Age occupants of Ban Non Wat were interred with such ceremony; nor was life easy during this period. Many of the dead were infants. There was a row of infant burials in one part of the excavated area. A child was interred with a bronze arrowhead still sharp to the touch. Perhaps conflict with other groups was a regular occurrence.
