Archaeologists have discovered fossils at least 11,000 years old in Luang Prabang province, which indicate that people have lived in this area for a long period of time.
Scientists believe there are not many places in the world where people have lived continuously in one geographical area. The type and nature of the communities living in this area have yet to be determined, but their presence there is in no doubt.
Co-Director of the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project and Lao Culture Heritage, Dr Joyce C. White, last week unveiled in Vientiane remarkable findings discovered during the excavations.
“Radio-carbon dating from Thatlang Thalew shows stone tools and other artefacts were used all over the Luang Prabang area,” she said.
“What we know is that this was an area where people lived for a long time.”
Dr White, who is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States , said she was confident about the accuracy of the findings due to the weight of evidence and the variety of artefacts discovered.
“We're bringing in specialists to study animal bones, plants and little bits of food on the stone tools…it takes a few years but yes, we have all that evidence and we are studying it,” she said.
She compared Luang Prabang to Ban Chieng in northeast Thailand where people are thought to have lived up to 5,000 years ago, but not as long ago as 11,000 years.
She was uncertain of the exact reason why people lived in Luang Prabang for so long and said it would take many years of study to discover and verify various hypotheses.
Dr White suspected that people wanted to use a particular kind of stone for their tools, which was available in Luang Prabang, but not in Ban Chieng.
This theory suggests the people who settled this area were hunter-gatherers.
“Hunter-gatherer societies have a special lifestyle that is very attuned to where resources are, where wild plants and animals are, and where the materials to make tools are,” Dr White said.
It also significant that communities continued to live in the area even after agriculture began during the stone age, believed to be after Ban Chieng's founding.
Resource scarcity and natural disasters appear not to have affected people's ability to settle in the area, as was the case in other ancient societies.
Dr White said evidence of societies living in one place for 11,000 years was a most remarkable finding.
“Continuing to live in one place is a very interesting thing in human society. It shows a place has special qualities, special characteristics.”
She wanted to learn more details about the earliest agriculture in Laos and Southeast Asia and the way the development of agriculture in Laos fitted into the Southeast Asian context.
The Ministry of Information and Culture's Heritage Department Director General, Mr Thongsa Xayavongkhamdy, said data in Laos was scarce so further study was needed to unlock the ancient mysteries of the world.
The Middle Mekong Archaeological Project and Lao Culture Heritage began in 2001. The project's findings have been important for knowledge and understanding about the impact of society. They are also making a contribution to tourism development and regional and global integration.
laos is the is the most unknown country and our history is sooo scatterd that things like this can change how the whole world think of laos and southeast asia.
i cant wait till the more discov eries come from laos who knows, i bet we only know 10% of true laos history because everty time i read a history book about southeast asia laos is barely mentioned..
this is just me but i bet once we discover our true history it will really show how great us lao ppl were. how we kicked pplz asses all over the place until we ourselvs destroyd our own kingdome from the inside out.
They even have a little Dinosaur meseum in Savannakhet. When I went there 4 month ago, I've visited the mesuem and there were couple of Dinosaur skeleton or fossil found there............pretti neat stuff
maybe it was not lao people has lived in Luangprabang 11,000 years ago?
tru im not just saying lao lived there but im saying that with more knowledged learned of that region it will still definatly change south east asian history.
so far i myself learned from reading various resources lao was definatly not the first inhabitants of that region but i would still like to learn more.
