The Southeast Asian Bronze Age Fringe? Technological, Elemental and Lead Isotopic Data From Nong Nor and Koh Ta Méas

ABSTRACT Mainland Southeast Asian metal exchange networks during the regional Bronze Age (c. 1200–500 bc ) are increasingly well‐documented and understood in their complexity and relations to southern China. However, significant gaps remain due to the scarcity of excavated sites of this period with metallurgical assemblages, as well as most of the previously studied sites being in irregularly distributed clusters. The Bronze Age cemeteries of Nong Nor and Koh Ta Meas represent atypical locations, on the coast of the Bangkok Embayment in Thailand and submerged in the Western Baray of Angkor in Cambodia, respectively. The 17 Thai and two Cambodian copper‐base samples cover seven broad typologies and five alloys, including rare near‐pure tin. The limited Koh Ta Meas assemblage appears to represent exchange relationships with communities upstream on the Mekong River, whereas the Thai artefacts seem related to northeast Thailand, and potentially Red River communities in northern Vietnam.