Dating the Myanmar Bronze Age: preliminary 14C dates from the Oakaie 1 cemetery near Nyaung'gan

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Pryce, Thomas Oliver;Kyaw, Aung Aung;Andia, Lucy;Champion, Louis;Colonna, Camille;Favereau, Aude;Htwe, Kalayar Myat Myat;Peixoto, Xavier;Pradier, Baptiste;Willis, Anna;Valentin, Fréderique;Zazzo, Antoine
Anna Willis
Abstract

Since 2014 the Mission Archéologique Française au Myanmar has been excavating a prehistoric cemetery, Oakaie 1, adjacent to the famous Nyaung'gan Bronze Age cemetery in Sagaing Division. Oakaie 1 (OAI1) was selected as a Nyaung'gan proxy in order to better understand the Neolithic-Bronze Age-Iron Age chronological transitions in upper-central Myanmar, for eventual regional-scale synthesis. An initial attempt to AMS 14C date 13 human femurs failed due to a lack of collagen but a subsequent effort using an apatite dating methodology on 5 femurs was successful. These preliminary data bracket part of the cemetery from the 9th to 6th c. BC with a 4th-3rd c. BC outlier. Typological and technological analogies between OAI1 and Nyaung'gan pottery grave goods likewise suggest an early 1st millennium BC date for the local Bronze Age.

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Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology

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39

ISBN/ISSN

2375-0510

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Pages Count

12

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Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association

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DOI

10.7152/jipa.v39i0.14902