Highlights of 30 Years of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Thailand
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1967 One year after Stephen Young's famous fall onto
pottery eroding from a road in Ban Chiang, sherds from the site are brought
to University of Pennsylvania Museum for thermoluminescence dating at the
Museum's Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA). |
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| 1968 George Dales and Bennet Bronson begin one of
the first modern scientific archaeological excavations in Thailand at Chansen,
a 1st millennium AD site, which revealed evidence of early contact between
Thailand and India.
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1974-5 Two seasons of joint Thai-Penn excavations at Ban Chiang
directed by Chet Gorman and Pisit Charoenwongsa opens a door on Southeast
Asian prehistory. Revelations include those of the great antiquity of settled
village life, ancient metal technologies, and the development of rice cultivation.
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1976 Cultural materials from the Ban Chiang excavations are loaned by the government of Thailand to the University of Pennsylvania Museum for analysis. |
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1979-81 Joyce White conducts ethnoecological research in Ban Chiang, Thailand for doctorate in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. |
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| 1981 Chet Gorman, a young and talented Penn archaeologist,
dies a tragically premature death.
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| 1982 The Smithsonian produces the traveling exhibition
"Ban Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age," based on Penn/Thai Fine
Arts Department excavations.
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1984-5 Vincent Pigott of MASCA along with Surapol Natapintu, a graduate of Penn's Masters program for Southeast Asian archaeologists funded by the Ford Foundation, initiate the Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project. They conduct first excavation of Southeast Asian prehistoric copper mine at Phu Lon along the Mekong River. |
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| 1986-94 Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project excavates
Non Pa Wai and Nil Kham Haeng, which are among the largest known prehistoric
copper producing villages of the Old World. Program in lab analysis commences
at MASCA. |
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1993 Friends of Ban Chiang is founded to celebrate UNESCO's 1992 inscription of Ban Chiang as a World Heritage Site. |
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1993-6 Joyce White returns to Thailand to direct two seasons of the Thailand Palaeoenvironmental Project and to address issues of origins of rice agriculture, environmental reconstruction, and climatic change. |
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| 1997 Thai Archaeology Challenge
commences to ensure that three decades of research reach the people of Thailand
and the international scholarly community. |
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2002 Publication of Ban Chiang, A Prehistoric Village Site in Northeast Thailand I: The Human Skeletal Remains by Michael Pietrusewsky and Michele Toomay Douglas, Thai Archaeology Monograph Series , edited by Joyce C. White |
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