A Dictionary of archaeology Edited By Ian Shaw and Robert Jameson, Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999 ISBN 0–631–17423–0 (alk. paper)

3 Southeast Asia The physical relief of the region of southeast Asia offers a sharp contrast between the floodplains of the Chao Phraya, Mekong and Red rivers and the intervening uplands. The climate is monsoonal, with a dry season which lasts from November to April, and rains which commence in May. The most significant environmental change in the Holocene involved the drowning of extensive continental shelves by a rising sea, and the formation of shorelines higher than the present sea level.

3.1 Prehistory. The drowning of the continental shelves has prevented the consideration of maritime adaptation before 4000–5000 BC, when raised beaches with prehistoric settlements are encountered, but it is clear that the inland, forested uplands were occupied by small bands of transitory foragers. Numerous rock shelters are known, particularly in the karst uplands of northern Vietnam, and these are often ascribed to the Hoabinhian technocomplex. The material culture included flaked river cobbles and, with time, edgeground and polished adzeheads and pottery sherds. These sites have been dated from 11000 BC, and some late contexts in northern Thailand lasted into the 3rd millennium BC or even later. The material culture corresponds to that found in the lowest levels of thick coastal shell middens found on raised