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Prehistoric Thailand: From Early Settlement to Sukhothai. By CHARLES HINGHAM and RACHANIE THORSARAT. Bangkok: River Books, 1998. 236 pp. $30.00 (paper).
This is a very handsome and a very personal book. The authors have collaborated at several important excavations in central and northeast Thailand over the last two decades, and this volume showcases their major contributions to understanding the prehistoric period. The affordable volume is lavishly illustrated with color maps and photographs, the latter particularly of prehistoric cemeteries in the process of being excavated. This volume provides the reader with a striking visual sense of archaeological research in Thailand.
The audiences addressed in this book are many, resulting in an unevenness of style and level of prose. Inadequately referenced for the scholarly audience, the volume nevertheless publishes some of the authors' data and interpretations for the first time. The lay audience, who seem to be the target audience for the book, will likely not be willing to wade through much of the detailed description (e.g., phase-by-phase changes in items like fishhooks at Khok Phanom Di). The lay audience will, however, appreciate that finally two archaeologists were willing to expend the effort to write an attractive and...