Editing Hoabinhian (section)

===History===
[[File:Hiem cave, Hoabinhian.jpg|thumb|upright=2|Hiem cave, Hoabinhian]]
[[File:Hiem cave (inside).jpg|thumb|upright=2|Hiem cave (inside)]]

In 1927, [[Madeleine Colani]] published some details of her nine [[Excavation (archaeology)|excavation]]s in the northern Vietnamese province of [[Hòa Bình Province|Hòa Bình]]. As a result of her work the First Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East in 1932 agreed to define the Hoabinhian as:

<blockquote>a culture composed of implements that are in general flaked with somewhat varied types of primitive workmanship. It is characterised by tools often worked only on one face, by hammerstones, by implements of sub-triangular section, by discs, short axes and almond shaped artifacts, with an appreciable number of bone tools (Matthews 1966).</blockquote>

Despite the general terms of the definition, Colani's Hoabinhian is an elaborate [[Typology (archaeology)|typology]] as indicated by the 82 artifacts from Sao Dong that Colani classified into 28 [[Type (biology)|type]]s (Matthews 1966). The original typology is so complicated that most Hoabinhian sites are identified simply by the presence of [[sumatralith]]s (White & Gorman 1979). The chronology of Hoabinhian artifacts was assumed to be Holocene because of the extant [[fauna (animals)|fauna]] found in the assemblages and the absence of [[List of extinct animals#Asia|extinct fauna]] by Colani and others working before the availability of [[radiocarbon dating]] methods in the 1950s.

Problems with Colani's typology were exposed by Matthews (1964) who analysed metric and technological attributes of unifacially flaked cobble artifacts from Hoabinhian levels at Sai Yok Rockshelter, [[Kanchanaburi Province]], west-central [[Thailand]]. His aim was to determine if Hoabinhian artifact types described by Colani could be defined as clusters of constantly recurring attributes such as length, width, thickness, mass, length-width ratio and [[Cortex (archaeology)|cortex]] amount and distribution. Matthews found that Hoabinhian types did not exist and instead Hoabinhian artifacts reflect a continuous range of shapes and sizes.

Following his archaeological excavation and surveys in [[Mae Hong Son Province]], northwest Thailand, [[Chester Gorman]] (1970) proposed a more detailed definition as follows

# A generally unifacial [[Lithic flake|flake]]d tool tradition made primarily on water rounded [[pebble]]s and large flakes detached from these pebbles
# [[Lithic core|Core]] tools ("[[Sumatralith]]s") made by complete flaking on one side of a pebble and grinding stones also made on rounded pebbles, usually in association with [[iron oxide]]
# A high incidence of used flakes (identified from edge-damage characteristics)
# Fairly similar assemblages of food remains including remains of extant shellfish, fish and small-to-medium-size mammals
# A cultural and ecological orientation to the use of rockshelters generally occurring near freshwater streams in an upland [[karst]]ic topography (though Hoabinhian shell [[midden]]s do indicate at least one other ecological orientation)
# Edge-grinding and cord-marked [[pottery|ceramic]]s occurring, individually or together, in the upper layers of Hoabinhian deposits

Gorman's work included a number of radiocarbon dates that confirmed the Holocene age of the Hoabinhian. Gorman's carbon-14 dates place Hoabinhian levels at [[Spirit Cave (Thailand)]] between 12,000 and 8000 BP, these levels have also produced cord-marked [[pottery|ceramic]]s.<ref>Who Needs the Past?: Indigenous Values and Archaeology by Robert Layton, page 154</ref> The term was redefined in 1994 by archaeologists attending a conference held in [[Hanoi]]. At this conference Vietnamese archaeologists presented evidence of Hoabinhian artifacts dating to 17,000 years before the present. A vote was held where it was agreed that<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.geocities.com/thai_archaeology/seasia/04/comment1.html | archive-url=https://archive.today/20091026024709/http://www.geocities.com/thai_archaeology/seasia/04/comment1.html | url-status=dead | archive-date=26 October 2009 | title=THE HOABINHIAN 60 YEARS AFTER MADELEINE COLANI: ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE. HANOI, 28 DECEMBER 1993 - 3 JANUARY 1994.}}</ref>

# The concept of the Hoabinhian should be kept
# The best concept for "Hoabinhian" was an [[Archaeological industry|industry]] rather than a [[culture]] or [[techno-complex]]
# The chronology of the Hoabinhian industry dates is from "late-to-terminal [[Pleistocene]] to early-to-mid Holocene"
# The term "Sumatralith" should be retained
# The Hoabinhian Industry should be referred to as a "cobble" rather that a "pebble" tool industry
# The Hoabinhian should not be referred to as a "[[Mesolithic]]" phenomenon