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The prehistory of Southeast Asia: a retrospective view of 40 years research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Charles Higham
Charles Higham*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand (Email: [email protected])
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Extract

When David Clark asked me in 1970 to contribute a chapter on Southeast Asia for hisnew book, Models in archaeology, I faced a dilemma. What could one say about an areathe size of Western Europe of which virtually nothing was known? So I entitled mychapter 'Initial model formulation in terraincognita' and speculated on the basis ofthe handful of sites that had been excavated (Higham 1972). Nor was the prognosisfor the area at all promising. The war inVietnam was spilling over into Laos andCambodia. China remained a looming voidto the north, Burma was not receptiveand Malaysia did not welcome foreignarchaeologists. Only Thailand shone likea welcoming beacon.

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 328 , June 2011 , pp. 639 - 653
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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