“Ban Chiang is considered to be the most important but surprisingly underrated prehistoric settlement discovered so far in Southeast Asia as it dated back 3,000 years ago. The bracelets were made before the time of Buddhism or any imposed national hegemony. The original bracelets are now in the collection of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) in Los Angeles. These prehistoric Ban Chiang artefacts were accidentally found by an American student who were researching for his senior thesis during the summer of 1966 in the Northeastern part of Thailand. This discovery was considered to be a major breakthrough in Southeast Asian archaeology as it predicated Southeast Asian as an autonomous Bronze Age that weren’t owed its metallurgy advancement from its neighbouring countries like India and China. Even though the artefacts has been surfaced before but it was brought to attention by the help of the United States government which led to major archaeological excavations of the site and further studies, however this could be seen as a Post Vietnam by-product of US imperialism as well as to serve their geopolitical agenda of replacing Indochina governments with liberal democracies to win against the influence of communism.”
