The people of Ban Lum Khao

The following report provides a detailed account of the prehistoric people of Ban Lum Khao, Northheast Thailand. The cemetery has been divided into three mortuary phases (MP), with the dominant majority of burials coming from the second. In the following report, the human remains will first be considered as one sample, since the time difference between the three phases is not considered to have been major. In a later section, evidence for temporal change between the three mortuary phases will be reviewed. This report focuses on the reconstruction of the population's health status. It will be presented and discussed emphasising how it can reflect and provide information about the biological, cultural and environmental factors interacting within a population. Comparisons with some other prehistoric Thai populations are briefly provided for some aspects in order to place the people of Ban Lum Khao in their regional and chronological context. The sites used for comparison in this report are detailed in table 5:1. Most of the material presented has been previously published in a detailed comparative analysis of health in prehistoric Thailand (Domett 2001» However, a second review of the Ban Lum Khao material was possible during 2002 and a few minor changes have been necessary and are presented in this report