Monday, January 20th, 2014 Ideological Change and the Emergence of Urbanism in Mid-First Milennium CE Central Thailand

Description

Since the time when humans began living in sedentary communities more than 12,000 years ago, the majority of permanent settlements have had small populations where relationships based on kinship have provided the basis for social order and political influence. With the emergence of urban centers containing large and diverse populations, new types of relationships and identities that supplemented kinship were needed to provide order and legitimacy. During the mid-first millennium CE, members of the Dvaravati culture of central Thailand faced these challenges as they developed the region’s first cities and towns. In this talk, I examine how the residents of Dvaravati centers created new identities and relationships by infusing their own indigenous traditions with religious and political ideologies from South Asia. Public monuments played a key role in this process by reinforcing group membership during their construction and use, as well as by allowing emerging elites to materialize ideologies that supported their authority. Finally, through a comparison of Dvaravati urbanism with urban traditions elsewhere in Southeast Asia and beyond, I highlight the common features of low density urban centers in Asia that challenge some long-standing ideas about life in early cities.