View from the East Mountain: An Examination of the Relationship between the Dong Son and Lake Tien Civilizations in the First Millennium B.C.

THE DONG SON ("East Mountain") Bronze Age culture of the Red River delta of northern Viet Nam has been known since the 1930s. The original finds date to the colonial period and were handsomely described by Goloubew (1929, 1937) andJanse (1958). They include the now familiar and characteristic bronze drums and weapons, burial situlae (bucket-shaped ceramic and bronze vessels), and concentric decorative motifs. Subsequent research, including a plethora of recent work by the Vietnamese themselves (Hoang and Bui 1980), reveals the Dong Son cultural complex as a northern center of a widespread bronzeliron complex found throughout Viet Nam and the rest of Southeast Asia. It represents an in situ development from preceding Neolithic phases in the vicinity of the Red, Ma, and Ca river systems. Between 1955 and 1960, 50 tombs were discovered at Shizhai Shan, Jinning, in Yunnan Province (Fig. 1). This far-distant region was known as the kingdom of Tien during the western Han period (206 B.C.-A.D. 9). The archaeological investiga-tions revealed a rich Bronze Age culture with multiform affinities, including some with the roughly contemporaneous Dong Son to the southeast. Continuing excava