• How old are the rock paintings of Mainland Southeast Asia? 🎨🪨

A new study from Mangguan in Yunnan, southwestern China, provides another important piece of the puzzle.

Using uranium-thorium dating, researchers analysed tiny calcite deposits that had formed over the paintings. Because the calcite must be younger than the pigment underneath, the dates provide a minimum age for the art. One deposit covering a human figure shows that the painting was already there at least 4,220 years ago.

Mangguan is particularly interesting because it lies only about 15 km from the better-known Cangyuan rock art complex. The two have stylistic similarities and overlapping dates, suggesting they formed part of a broader regional rock art tradition, a comparison can be taken farther south.

The rock paintings at Pha Taem in Luang Prabang, Laos, have previously been compared with Cangyuan, raising intriguing questions about relationships between the rock art traditions of southwestern China and Mainland Southeast Asia.

Most rock art in Mainland Southeast Asia remains poorly dated, so dates like those from Mangguan give us increasingly useful chronological anchors for thinking about these connections.

References:
Wu, Y. et al. 2026. U-Th dating of rock paintings in southwestern China: minimum age of ~4.2 ka BP at the Mangguan site. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 74, 105987. DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105987.

Bo, X. 2020. On the relationship between the Cangyuan rock art in Yunnan, China, and the Pha Taem rock art in Laos. Rock Art Research 37(2).

Tan, N.H. 2018. The Cliff Paintings of Pha Taem, Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. Rock Art Research 35(1).

#RockArt #SoutheastAsianArchaeology #Yunnan #China
  • Extraordinary claims about the past can be exciting. But how do we tell an exciting new hypothesis from pseudoarchaeology?

Recent controversy in Malaysia over claims that ancient Malays taught the Romans shipbuilding provides a useful case study. Rather than piling on the person behind the claims, I think there is a more useful question to ask: how would we actually test an idea like this?

Archaeology gives us some simple tools.

Do the dates work? What is the primary evidence? Does the evidence actually demonstrate the connection being claimed? Are there better explanations? And perhaps most importantly: what evidence would make us reject the hypothesis?

Ancient Southeast Asians really were sophisticated seafarers. Srivijaya really was one of Asia’s great maritime powers. Sungai Batu really does preserve remarkable evidence for early iron production.

None of those achievements needs embellishment to make Southeast Asian archaeology extraordinary.

Swipe through for five questions you can use the next time you encounter an astonishing claim about the ancient past.

🚩 Remember: possibility is not evidence, similarity does not necessarily mean transmission, and extraordinary claims still have to survive ordinary archaeological scrutiny.

Read more about the archaeology behind these claims in this week’s Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsletter.

#SoutheastAsianArchaeology #Pseudoarchaeology #Malaysia #MaritimeArchaeology #MediaLiteracy
  • A 4,000-year-old painted stone from Wetar Island may change how we understand the Austronesian story.⠀
⠀
Archaeologists excavating Huknaur 1 in Southeast Indonesia found a painted plaque with a red sun-ray motif linked to the Austronesian Painting Tradition — a wider visual tradition known from eastern Indonesia and nearby islands.⠀
⠀
What makes this find so important is that the plaque appears to be older than the first pottery at the site. That means a shared symbolic tradition may have been present before the full Neolithic package usually associated with Austronesian expansion. This discovery suggests that ideas, symbols, and identity may have travelled ahead of pottery.⠀
⠀
It is a reminder that the spread of people goes beyond tools, crops, or ceramics, and may also have been about belief, belonging, and a shared visual language carried across the sea.⠀
⠀
Swipe through to see why this small object has such big implications.⠀
⠀
Reference:⠀
O’Connor, S., Kealy, S., Kaharudin, H.A.F., et al. (2026). 4000-year-old painted plaque from Southeast Indonesia reveals Austronesian Painting Tradition preceded Neolithic pottery. PNAS 123(34): e2611580123.⠀
⠀
#SoutheastAsianArchaeology #RockArt #Austronesian #Indonesia #Wetar #SoutheastAsia #IslandSoutheastAsia #AustronesianPaintingTradition
  • Plaques, Ponds and Provenance⠀
⠀
This week’s newsletter begins with a 4,000-year-old painted plaque from Wetar Island — a small object with a big story.⠀
⠀
The plaque carries a red sun-like motif linked to the Austronesian Painting Tradition, and it appears before pottery at the site. That suggests visual symbols and shared ideas may have moved through maritime Southeast Asia before some of the usual archaeological markers we associate with Austronesian expansion.⠀
⠀
Also this week: archaeology beneath Angkor’s Sras Srang, suspected Ban Chiang artefacts offered for return from Switzerland, and more heritage news from across the region.⠀
⠀
Link in bio.
  • How do you make a 3-metre stone stand upright for centuries?

At Hintang in northern Laos, archaeologists are beginning to answer that question.

In 2025, a Lao-Australian team excavated Site 7A — the first excavation at a Hintang standing-stone site in around 90 years. Beneath the surface, they found that the stones had been set deeply into pits, with smaller rocks packed around their bases to stabilise them. Roughly one-third of each standing stone was buried underground.

One big question remains, though — how old are the Hintang stones?

Samples were collected for dating, but those results are still being analysed. So, for now, we understand a little more about how these monuments were built.

📖 Shewan, L., O’Reilly, D., Armstrong, B. & Butphachit, A. (2026). “Surveys of Hintang standing stone sites and excavations at Site 7A, Houaphanh, Lao PDR.” Antiquity.
doi: 10.15184/aqy.2026.10408

#Archaeology #SoutheastAsianArchaeology #Laos #Megaliths #Hintang #AncientTechnology #ArchaeologicalResearch #Heritage #NewResearch
  • Angkor’s water system is famous for its scale: enormous reservoirs, long canals, and monumental engineering.⠀
⠀
New research by archaeologist Sarah Klassen highlights how Angkor’s agricultural system also depended on more than 1,000 local temple communities spread across the Greater Angkor Region. These communities helped organise labour, manage local water systems, and coordinate rice production - and suggests that Angkor’s success was built through a combination of top-down and bottom-up management.⠀
⠀
The state created the large hydraulic framework. Local communities adapted to it, expanded around it, and helped make the wider agricultural landscape function.⠀
⠀
Over time, however, this balance changed. Land and resources became increasingly concentrated, the system became more centralised, and some of the flexibility that had helped Angkor cope with earlier environmental stress may have been lost.⠀
⠀
Beyond its temples and kings, Angkor
  • New Evidence from the Southeast Asian Borderlands⠀
⠀
This week in Southeast Asian Archaeology: new dates, new methods, and some wonderfully untidy timelines.⠀
⠀
🪨 Uranium-thorium dating pushes the Mangguan rock paintings in Yunnan back to at least 4,220 years ago⠀
 🥁 AI-assisted restoration takes on damaged imagery on Guangxi bronze drums⠀
 🌾 New work at Angkor asks how infrastructure, local communities and water management shaped resilience⠀
 🗿 Lao-Australian fieldwork maps and excavates the enigmatic Hintang standing stones⠀
⠀
Plus archaeology and heritage news from across Southeast Asia, new research, opportunities, and more.⠀
⠀
I’ve also started experimenting with short visual explainers of new archaeology papers here on Instagram — so follow along if you like your archaeology with fewer footnotes and more pixels.⠀
⠀
Read the latest SEAArch newsletter via the link in bio.⠀
⠀
#Archaeology #SoutheastAsianArchaeology #SoutheastAsia #RockArt #Angkor #Laos #Yunnan #Heritage #ArchaeologicalResearch #DigitalHeritage
  • This week on Southeast Asian Archaeology: fish traps, tidal flats and maritime memory.⠀
⠀
The main story looks at tambek, stone tidal fish weirs on Bawean Island in Indonesia. A new study records 54 of these structures and shows how they reflect local knowledge of tides, fish behaviour, construction, ownership and coastal life.⠀
⠀
Also in the highlights:⠀
⠀
Bronze and Iron Age layers beneath Korat’s historic city wall⠀
Nguyễn-era military posts at Hải Vân Pass⠀
A reminder that coastal archaeology is not always shipwrecks and trade ceramics⠀
Sometimes the quieter story is sitting in the tidal flats, waiting for the water to go out.⠀
⠀
Read the full issue: https://bit.ly/4wkInNI ⠀
⠀
#SoutheastAsianArchaeology #Archaeology #Indonesia #Bawean #MaritimeHeritage #CulturalHeritage #Thailand #Vietnam #HeritageConservation #IslandArchaeology
  • How do you catch fish without a net, hook or boat?⠀
⠀
On Bawean Island in Indonesia’s Java Sea, coastal communities developed tambek: stone walls built across the intertidal zone that use the movement of the tides to trap fish.⠀
⠀
A new study by Dwi Kurnia Sandy and colleagues documents these remarkable structures through archaeological survey, drone photography, interviews, historical sources and mapping. The researchers recorded different forms of tambek, from relatively simple U-shaped structures to more elaborate V-shaped systems directing fish into enclosed spaces. Their locations were carefully chosen around productive coastal environments, particularly extensive intertidal zones and mangroves.⠀
⠀
But tambek were more than fishing equipment. They were also part of Bawean’s social landscape. Individual structures could belong to particular families, with ownership remembered and passed down across generations. Tambek could even be traded, while customary rules governed who could fish around them at different stages of the tide.⠀
⠀
Today, new tambek are no longer being built and many surviving structures are little used or abandoned. The researchers link their decline to modern fishing technologies, damage to reefs and mangroves, and the gradual loss of knowledge about how the structures were used and maintained. Some have even been dismantled, with their stones reused for coastal infrastructure.⠀
⠀
The study highlights how archaeology can document not only things from the distant past, but also traditional technologies and knowledge systems that are disappearing within living memory.⠀
⠀
📖 Sandy, D. K., et al. 2026. “Tambek as Traditional Fish Trapping Techniques: The Role of Stone Tidal Fish Weirs in Bawean Island Indonesia’s Maritime Culture.” Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology.⠀
 DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2026.2703955⠀
⠀
#Archaeology #SoutheastAsianArchaeology #Indonesia #Bawean #MaritimeArchaeology #UnderwaterArchaeology #FishingHeritage #MaritimeHeritage #TraditionalKnowledge
  • Tiger bones. Blood-bound pigments. Temple walls. Digital museums.⠀
⠀
This week’s newsletter leads with two fascinating studies: evidence for Ice Age tigers living on Palawan, and research into blood-bearing mineral binders used in the Huashan rock art of southern China.⠀
⠀
Also inside: UNESCO decisions, Angkor conservation, Chăm heritage digitisation and the archaeology of wartime railways.⠀
⠀
Read Blood, Big Cats and Buffer Zones at the link in bio.⠀
⠀
#SoutheastAsianArchaeology #Archaeology #RockArt #Palawan #CulturalHeritage #MuseumStudies #AsianArchaeology
Sunday, August 30, 2026
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Wednesday Rojak #28

30 April 2008
in Indonesia, Peripheral Southeast Asia, Singapore, Thailand
Tags: ethicsgeneral archaeologyHomo floresiensisIndiana JonesJohn Hawks (person)Majapahit (kingdom)Museum SiammuseumsPeranakan MuseumSilatSukhothai (kingdom)Trowulan (site)Wednesday Rojak
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New museums, Hobbit commentaries and views of some of Southeast Asia’s archaeological sites – all this for today’s edition of rojak!

photo credit: kurvenalbn

  • After last week’s controversial claim that the Hobbit had been to the dentist (see here, here and here), John Hawks weighs in on the weaknesses of the claim
  • One of the most influential scientific works of all time are online – check out the Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
  • Jiewa writes about the Majapahit Heritage Trail in Trowulan (in Indonesian)
  • With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opening next month, this podcast looks at the cultural effects of our favourite archaeologist-adventurer on the field of archaeology. Check out Indiana Jones: Saving History or Stealing It?
  • Anyone interested in Silat, or the Malay form of martial arts might be interested in Silat Mekayu The Blog
  • Steven Vincent poses the question, Do antique dealers preserve the past or steal it?
  • There’s a new museum in Singapore – The Peranakan Museum opened last weekend and is dedicated to a special Southeast Asian subculture called the Peranakans, who were descended from the early Chinese settlers who married with local Malays and created a unique synthesis of both cultures. Eastcoastlife blogs about the ongoing opening festival
  • On an official trip for the Networking of ASEAN Cultural Heritage, Walter visits the Sukhothai Historic Park
  • The Preah Vihear dispute between Cambodia and Thailand has been getting a lot of news lately, and Khmer blogger Sovannaphume shows us some old photos of Preah Vihear and how the border has been affected
  • Richard Barrow blogs about the new Museum of Siam

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