Hoabinhian

A little-known Mesolithic or Neolithic culture (early-to-mid-Holocene stone tool industry) of southeast Asia (type site is Hoa Binh, Vietnam) dating from 10,000-2000 BC. There are many chipped, pecked, and polished stone axes found in piles of shells. Its importance lies in its position between the earliest centers of rice growing in India and China, and in the part it most have played in diffusing the knowledge of agriculture into Indonesia and the Pacific. The Neolithic assemblages have pottery and ground stone tools for several millennia after 6000 BC. It is best described as a techno-complex with successive cultural accretions, the Hoabinhian cannot be regarded as an archaeological culture of chronological horizon. The majority of Hoabinhian sites found to date are in rock shelters and coastal shell middens. The three recognized phases are: archaic with unifacially worked pebble tools, intermediate with smaller pebble tools and bifacial working and edge-grinding, and late characterized by some pottery, smaller scrapers, grinding stones, knives, piercers, polished stone tools, and shell artifacts.

A major stone tool industry of the mainland of Southeast Asia, with extensions into Sumatra and perhaps the northern Philippines. Dated sites range from about 12,000 be onwards, and overlap with Neolithic assemblages with pottery and ground stone tools for several millennia after 6000 be. Best described as a techno-complex with successive cultural accretions, the Hoabinhian cannot be regarded as an archaeological culture or chronological horizon. It is basically a tradition of stone tool manufacture (pebble tools, flakes) which continued even into the 1st millennium AD in remote interior regions. Claims for Hoabinhian horticulture orior to 6000 be have been made for Spirit Cave in northwestern Thailand, and edgeground tools and pottery appear in Late Hoabinhian (Bacsonian) assemblages in north Vietnam soon after,8000 be. The majority of Hoabinhian sites found to date are in rock shelters and coastal shell middens. See also Gua Cha, Gua Kechil, Laang Spean, Quynh-Van, Sai Yok, Son Vi.