Prehistory and Ideology in Cold War Southeast Asia: The Politics of Wartime Archaeology in Thailand and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1954–1975

Abstract

The two decades comprised within the partition of Vietnam and the end of the Indochina Wars surprisingly saw major advances in prehistoric archaeology in the region. This article examines the political context and implications of archaeological investigations conducted in Thailand and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under the guidance of, respectively, American and Soviet specialists, as an aspect of the cultural Cold War. Archaeological discoveries in both countries debunked colonial archaeology’s account of prehistoric Southeast Asia as a passive recipient of Chinese cultural influence by documenting autonomous technological development. The article argues that the new image of mainland Southeast Asia’ prehistory that formed by the early 1970s reflected the superpowers’ objective of empowering the region’s postcolonial nation-states notwithstanding their political contrasts, yet it was not equally congruent with the nationalist narratives of Thailand and North Vietnam.

Keywords

• Cold War
• Democratic Republic of Vietnam
• Thailand
• archaeology
• nationalism