Đông Sơn culture

The Đông Sơn culture, Dongsonian culture, or the Lạc Việt culture (named for modern village Đông Sơn, a village in Thanh Hóa, Vietnam) was a Bronze Age material centered on the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam. Archaeological artifacts closely related to the Đông Sơn or believed to be Đông Sơn have also been found in other parts of Southeast Asia and China such as Malaysia, Laos, and the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, Fujian from 1000 BC until the first century AD. Vietnamese historians attribute the culture to the states of Văn Lang and Âu Lạc and its influence spread to other parts of Southeast Asia, including Maritime Southeast Asia, from about 1000 BC to 1 BC.

The Đông Sơn people were skilled at cultivating rice, keeping water buffalos and pigs, fishing and sailing in long dugout canoes. They also were skilled bronze casters, which is evidenced by the Dong Son drum found widely throughout northern Vietnam and Yunnan and Guangxi in China.

Definition

The Đông Sơn ("East Mountain") archaeological culture is named after the bronze Đông Sơn drums, archaeological items first excavated in Thanh Hóa province, Vietnam, by M. Pajot in 1924. These bronze kettledrums excavated in Thanh Hóa are classified as Heger I type drums and can be found in northern Vietnam and as well as the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi. Heger I drums are identified by intricate decorations consisting of scenes depicting rings of warships and warriors in feather headdresses orbiting around a sun in the center, upon which rest models of stylized frogs. Đông Sơn has also been used as a catch-all term for bronze kettledrums from other places in southern China and Southeast Asia such as the Heger II type drums, also known as Li Lao drums. The Heger II drums share some elements of the Heger I drums such as the frogs and radiating sun motif but are decorated in a much plainer style and are much bigger in size. There are also similarities between Heger II and Heger I type drums that are not shared between Heger I and II drums from different locations. The Heger I and II drums from Guangxi and Yunnan have lower lead content than other Heger I and II drums from the Red River Plain and Li-Lao regions, suggesting a diffusion model from the Red River Plain.