The Ancients - The Origins of Ancient Vietnam

Episode Date: October 25, 2020

It is one of the most extraordinary ancient archaeological sites in Southeast Asia, albeit one that is relatively unheard of outside of Vietnam. Cổ Loa. A defensive stronghold that during its golden age became the beating heart of ancient Vietnam. To this day the city holds a deep national importance for the Vietnamese. It is a site surrounded by legendary tales, with new archaeological discoveries continuing to reveal more about this ancient city’s fascinating past.To talk through the history, and legends, that surround this central bastion of ancient Vietnam, I was delighted to be joined by Professor Nam Kim from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nam is a leading expert on the ancient history of Vietnam and has conducted excavations at Cổ Loa since 2005.Nam is the author of The Origins of Ancient Vietnam. 

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Today's podcast, we are going back to Southeast Asia, and in particular, we are going to Vietnam, because this podcast is all about Vietnam in antiquity, and in particular, a key site in ancient Vietnam called Kaloa. Now, I was delighted to get on the podcast, Professor Nam Kim. Nam is a

professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States of America. He has done archaeological work at the site of Kaloa since 2005 and it was a pleasure to have him on the show to talk about what we know about Kaloa, its historic significance for this part of the world, for Southeast Asia and antiquity, but also its national importance for the Vietnamese. Here's Nam. Nam, thank you so much for coming on the show. Tristan, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Now, move over the ancient Mediterranean, because we're talking about ancient Vietnam

and one of the most impressive ancient sites in Southeast Asia that to this day remains at the heart of Vietnamese identity? Yes, very much so. It is a site that is important in terms of history, what transpires in that particular location in the past, but it also remains important today, not just as a sort of politically significant site, but as a culturally significant one in terms of memory, national commemoration and heritage. And before we go on to that site in particular, let's focus on the backgrounds first, the context of ancient Vietnam. Do we have any idea about the origins of civilization in Vietnam?

We have quite a bit of knowledge about this. Most of it comes to us from the archaeological record. We know that in this particular region of the world, we have agricultural production really becoming part of the scene sometime during the third century, late third century BC. We have farming practices related to wet rice production, domesticated forms of animals coming into the region, those kinds of practices mixing in with pre-existing hunting and gathering and fishing life ways that were already present for quite some time. And it's within that time period that we start to see greater amounts of sedentism. And not long

after, settlements begin to grow in size and obviously population levels. And as a corollary to that, with more people, more interactions, more forms of complexity, and we start to see forms of social ranking and status differentiation. So the trappings of what you might consider civilization, we start to see this happening right around that time period. I mean, you mentioned fishing there, and you mentioned agriculture. So whereabouts in Vietnam are we talking for like the early civilizations? Are we talking along river valleys? Most definitely along river valleys. So in particular, in the area that I've been doing fieldwork, this is up in the north, not far from the modern capital of Hanoi. We're looking at the Red River, the valley and its delta. And in this area, you start to see, quote unquote,

Neolithic cultures, farming societies, a bit further up in the interior. As the coastline begins to shift further out to the southeast, we see communities taking advantage of some of these areas and cultivating wet rice. Some of these communities begin to move further into the delta area. And a lot of that activity has to do with these water resources. Yes, most certainly. And wet rice there, I'm guessing, is that another, that's also an important commodity for these early communities? Absolutely. What's fascinating to me is agricultural rice production, in particular, in this part of Vietnam, in the north, accounts for maybe two thirds of... That's a lot.

Today, yeah. So so and this probably would have been very important in the past as well and you have evidence of rice cultivation in many of these sites and once you start introducing other kinds of cultural practices other innovations on top of the cultivation that's happening innovations like bronze working for instance then things get really interesting and this seems to happen a few centuries later than what we just talked about that's happening. Innovations like bronze working, for instance. Then things get really interesting. And this seems to happen a few centuries later than what we just talked about previously. But by around 1500, 1200 BC, we start to see elements of bronze working at some of these sites. And the kinds of changes that we alluded to earlier in terms of social differentiation, they become more intensified. We see a lot of mortuary evidence, for instance,

of status differentiation. Some folks with better access to standards of living, more forms of wealth being buried with them, and giving us this clue that we're experiencing some forms of social complexity that begin to intensify. So from what you're saying, it's technological developments, and particularly you're saying with bronze, that leads to the development of these cultures, of these civilizations and societies too? They play a very big role. They form this sort of underpinning. And a lot of that stems from local practices and adoptions of technology and innovations. But a lot of it also stems from interactions throughout the region. We can see clear evidence of exchange of ideas and goods and materials, not only within this region,

but between communities in this area with others outside of it, and in particular, some to the north. So if you think about the Red River itself as a sort of superhighway of conductivity connecting various communities in this kind of constellation of sites and villages, the Red River source point is up in the southwest part of modern-day China in the Yunnan province. It goes from there some 1,200 kilometers southeastward into the Red River Delta, where Hanoi is located today, before emptying out into the Gulf of Bakbo. That stretch of river connects these two sets of societies on either end. And then you've got folks that may be connected along the coastline.

And one of the clues that we can point to is at the beginning of the river, at its source point, there are various communities in the first millennium BC that are very complex in terms of political organization, that are very sophisticated in terms of their bronze working. We see the same thing at the same time on the other end of that river. And so I don't think it's a coincidence. There's something happening. And those connections have existed since before bronze working became prominent, and they intensify in the first millennium BC. That's astonishing when the distances you mentioned as well, like over a thousand kilometers, like the stretch of that river.

Yeah. But even before bronze working, as you mentioned, this being this ancient highway, you could possibly have this interconnection, these possible trading networks existing. Yes, very much so. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that those networks existed. How it actually functioned on a micro scale is difficult to say and pinpoint, but we can imagine that there would be communities that were connected, whether directly or indirectly with each other. And so you've got a circulation of people, of goods, of ideas, potentially

connected by belief systems, maybe forms of language. It's difficult to comment too much on that because it's hard to reconstruct ethno-linguistic identities that far back, especially without written text. But you can imagine that there are communities that are in communication and likely shared many of these kinds of cultural aspects. communities that are in communication and likely shared many of these kinds of cultural aspects. Particularly in what is now northern Vietnam today, what do we know from the archaeology about the emergence of cities in this part of the world? So for this time period, this prehistoric, late prehistoric time period, we don't really have examples of cities to point to except for one example and this particular settlement

is known as Colois and this is the subject of our conversation today the settlement according to Vietnamese traditions folk tales legendary accounts and some textual records the city becomes a political capital comes into existence at a prescribed or an ascribed date of, I think it's 257-258 BC, depending on the source, and that it is founded by a particular kingdom, by a particular individual by the name of Anzong Vong, also known as Tukvon. This is a king who comes into power, who purportedly overthrows a pre-existing dynasty known as the Wenlang dynasty, and then proceeds to construct his seat of power, this capital city with massive fortifications. There are colorful tales associated with this particular history. To me, it's reminiscent sort of Arthurian tales of King

Arthur and Camelot. Oh, go on then, what other tales then? Yeah, and so according to these folk tales, Himalaya. Oh, go on then. What are the tales then? Yeah. And so according to these folk tales, An Zheng Weng is able to come to power and build his city through the advice of a magic turtle. Brilliant. The turtle comes out of the water, explains to him how to build his defenses. I'm sort of cobbling together various versions of the story here, but essentially gives him advice about his fortification system, defensive works, and so forth, how to build them, and also gives the king one of its claws and says, use this as your trigger mechanism for your crossbow. This then will give you the power to vanquish all of your enemies, the crossbow itself.

And that is part of the tale. I can go on and on about how the king then constructs his defenses, repels invaders, and eventually is betrayed by his daughter and son-in-law, who then, I won't go into detail, but eventually the magic crossbow finds its way out of the hands of the king, and he is defeated. So there are these tales that point to this time period, to this location, and to this potential site. And in Vietnam, I know this because of my Vietnamese ancestry, I have relatives who grew up reading about these tales, almost as accepted history, as conventional wisdom.

They talk about the fact that these walls still exist today. You can see them when you go out to the site at Go Loa, this archaeological site. You can still see the remnants of the ramparts still standing today. And for the Vietnamese, this is evidence that these tales were true. Not everyone agrees with this though. And the issue is we're talking about a prehistoric period. We're talking about tales that were not written and documented, officially recorded until well after the time period that they purport to describe. And so there are some that make the argument. Some of these tales may be embellished.

Some may have been invented. Some may not accurately reflect reality. So not unlike the Arthurian situation. Complicating the matter is the fact that the Han Empire of China comes into the picture right around the first century BC. They're increasingly moving south, they're encroaching in different areas, they're expanding the bounds of their empire, in all directions actually, into the quote-unquote realms of the barbarians on the outside. And they push far south into this area of modern-day northern Vietnam and into the Red River Valley

and Delta itself. And according to their accounts, when they come into these areas, the chroniclers write that they encounter unsophisticated barbarians who were in need of civilizing. They were not very sophisticated in terms of technologies, of agricultural production, and of governance. And so it was the Han that had to educate them and civilize them. This is a very typical sort of imperial trope when we see it elsewhere in history. But because of those kinds of descriptions, you have these sort of conflicting depictions about what was actually here at that time. And the archaeology, me represents a very important means to sort of parse through the various explanations theories and debates and to provide material correlates to substantiate some

of these claims and test them absolutely and i love that idea of the vietnamese camelot as it were and all these arthurian tales surrounding its legendary construction. But is that why the story surrounding Kho Loa seems to be so prevalent to this day in Vietnam? Because according to these legendary foundings, it predated the arrival of outside forces, in this case, the Han Empire of China. I think it plays a significant role. If you think about Vietnamese history back then, through the ensuing eras, through the 20th century, through to today, we can see a long history of intervention by foreign powers. So the Han, the Sinitic civilization, we see in more recent centuries, European intrusion into southeast asia and in the conflict in the 20th century so there are various moments of turmoil and of new independence

as well and i think attached to some of these episodes would be a search for a national identity that predates foreign intervention so in other words if you're looking for the origins of your national identity if you're looking for the origins of your national identity, if you're looking for the origins of your society, your ethnic identity, or your civilization, your ancient civilization, maybe there is a desire to find those periods that are indigenous that predate the foreign intrusion. And so that Han arrival,

it kicked off about a thousand years of Sinitic, they call the Sinitic domination periods, a thousand years. And so for the Vietnamese, it was very important to be able to point to these periods before the Han arrived and to say, not only do we have connections to these periods, but that there was something very sophisticated, something powerful and grand that existed in this area that rivals the histories of other nations, of other countries. And we can point to that. And I think there was a search through historical records, and this happened at different points in Vietnamese history. But then in the 20th century, it was complemented by a search for material correlates. So just to confirm all that you've been saying, it sounds like the legends surrounding Kho Loan make it seem like the crux,

the nucleus of this flourishing indigenous Vietnamese kingdom. Yes. So today, when people talk about the origins of Vietnamese civilization or identity, most people point to the north. It is a very long coastal country, right? But a lot of the areas in central and southern Vietnam were added to Vietnamese civilization in the last several hundred years. When they talk about the crucible, it's up in the north. And people point to that

area and they talk about specific kinds of histories and sites. This particular site is very prominent in that, in terms of an embryonic Vietnamese identity. And from what you were mentioning earlier, the archaeology of Co Loa, there is still some surviving today. Yes, there are clear indicators on the landscape itself, sitting on top. There are remnants of these systems. And there are archaeological finds that have been recovered over decades pointing to the earlier time periods one of the interesting things that actually is that there's been continuous occupation in this area since what's known as the fungwin culture period

this is the late neolithic this is about 4 000 years ago so since that time through today people have been living in this area the period of interest for us when we start to see the walls being constructed this was the the subject or the objective of my initial excavations and field projects in vietnam back in 2007 the initial objective was to find out when the ramparts themselves were constructed. Because our thought was, if you can date the construction of these monumental pieces of architecture, then you have a clue as to when we start to see the city emerging, when we start to see power being consolidated on an unprecedented scale. And then we can start to identify that particular episode of history. I came into it

without any kind of expectation, except to say that I thought our findings might be able to give us ideas about the particular debate. If you wanted to simplify and distill the debate in its simplest form, it would be, is Go Loa before the Han or after the Han? Is complexity before or after foreign intrusion? And my collaborators in Vietnam were very interested, obviously, in this question and wanted to collaborate on these excavations. And after we've done a series of excavations on different portions of the Rampart system, all of the findings are consistent with each other they generally point to the argument that the rampart was one system it wasn't built in

piecemeal fashion probably built during a window by a polity of some kind that was very powerful and this window according to our dates, radiocarbon dates and other forms of evidence, the window is something like 300 to 100 BC. This is firmly within the pre-Han period. And of course, my colleagues told me, we already knew this, and we're happy that the material evidence corroborates our suspicions. But my interpretation is, okay, I won't go so far as to say that this proves the existence of the Olaq kingdom or of that particular historical, semi-historical, or legendary figure. What I will say is there is no question something powerful

and complex was in place before the Han empire fully takes hold of the region. The material evidence supports that. And we can make comments about the nature of that particular polity and the factors that led to its emergence at this point in time and in this geographic spot. But beyond that, we're kind of speculating. I'd like to see more evidence before I say more definitive things about the existence of the Ola Kingdom. But I have no issue with my colleagues speculating on that. I think that there is enough evidence to strongly suggest the existence of such a kingdom,

but whether or not we're talking about every detail being historically validated now or archaeologically validating these details, that's another story. Forgive my ignorance, this might be a silly question, but why the ramparts in particular at Colois? Is it because they seem to be a key feature that emphasizes that this was a defensive structure?

For me, it's a form of monumental architecture. And the other challenge is because people have been living here for 4,000 years, there are many parts of the site today that have been developed, that have modern habitation and communities that we don't have access to study archaeologically. So presumably, under many of the existing buildings and homes, the extant homes of modern day communities, would be archaeological habitation and sites, maybe evidence of palaces, maybe evidence of royal tombs. Because we don't have access to some of these locations and potential sites, the first thing and the easiest thing one can do is to look at a proxy comparison.

And for us, that was the Rampart system. So if you can show that the Rampart system was contemporaneous, it was all built by one society at one time, then you can start to say interesting things about the construction process and how labor may have been organized and how resources may have been organized. The estimates that I've seen and that I've kind of played with in terms of numbers and calculations, maybe a million cubic meters of earthen material involved in the construction process. That's just the dirt, the soil alone. That does not account for all the equipment and tools,

all of the laborers that would be involved, and whoever might have been needed to direct all this, to plan it, to conceive of the idea, and to actually put that project into motion and to see it through to completion. The other thing I find interesting and curious is why would you do this if you did not have a sense that you would have the ability to maintain and upkeep the system over time? For me, the answer is simple. You have an expectation that you will indefinitely have the ability to maintain these ramparts over time. Whatever function they may have served, you know that you have the resources and the authority to maintain them. So this is another kind of indicator that we have some kind of state,

a powerful state, ancient state that existed here because authority is institutionalized in some way. There is some kind of governance that's in place that is permanent, that is not tied to someone's leadership skill or personality. It is something that goes on across generations. And I think that was key in using the ramparts as a sort of proxy. And just to get a bit more idea of the site, I mean, it sounds very interesting so far, and it sounds as if it was this big administrative center, quite similar perhaps to the Mycenaean palaces in pre-1000 BC in Europe. Right. But regards to these ramparts, how big a site are we talking? You mentioned that there was modern settlements over parts of the site. I mean, how big a site are we talking? And

materials-wise for the ramparts, are we talking just dirt or was there stone as well? The site in terms of aerial extent, we're talking about 400 to 600 hectares, depending on where you want to define the boundaries. The outer wall is about eight kilometers around in circumference. So we can see the remnants of three enclosures. The outermost is eight kilometers, the middle is about six and a half. And then there's this rectangular inner enclosure that it's about 1.65 kilometers. The legends say that there were nine walls and that there was some kind of spiral shape. Tengko Lua is essentially roughly translated, it's old snail shell, right? So the form that is described in these legendary accounts is a spiral kind of snail shell shape. We only see three.

And for the longest time, people believed that perhaps there were only three. In recent years, some of my colleagues and I have been doing some surveys on the ground, but also exploring satellite imagery, LIDAR, and other kinds of data. also exploring satellite imagery, LIDAR, and other kinds of data. And we suspect that we can actually see the remnants of a couple more in different areas. And that over the course of thousands of years, of course, some of these ramparts have been amplified and refurbished. Some have been obliterated through time. But it is quite possible that the extent was larger than what we see right now. So to answer your question about size, we're talking about a very big, big settlement. And this is unprecedented for Southeast Asia.

For this time period, first millennium BC, there is really no other site in Southeast Asia that comes close in terms of size. So something very unique is happening here. The only thing you can point to is cities to the north. And this raises the issue, what kinds of connections are there between an emerging Chinese civilization and what's happening here?

Besides dirt, the other part of your question, we find other materials inside the construction process, but most of it then would be debris that's a little bit later or higher up in the stratigraphy. In particular, there's a class of artifacts known as the ceramic roof tiles. We find thousands of fragments of roof tiles inside the ramparts. I'm not sure exactly why they're here. The explanations range from the obvious one, perhaps it was a roof-like structure on top of the entire set of ramparts. The other possibility is that this is debris, garbage, that was intentionally

deposited here to help shore up and fortify the surface of the rampart to prevent slippage from erosion and monsoonal rains, for instance. The interesting thing about the roof tiles is that there are no other roof tiles anywhere in Vietnam at this time, only at this location. The other interesting thing is the roof tiles are stylistically similar to those found in Chinese civilization, particularly in royal capitals and elite buildings. This has prompted me and some of my colleagues to speculate that even though Go Loa predates the Han arrival, and even though we suspect that this is constructed by local populations, indigenous leaders, they clearly have an awareness of what's happening to the North. They clearly understand some of the strategies and trappings of elite material culture, the symbols of authority that have been used in the North, and perhaps they're emulating these practices to say, not only do we know about that, but as we

take control, as we have power here, we will use the same kinds of practices, the same kinds of symbols to represent our authority. Maybe it's a show for those in the local area, but maybe it's also a demonstration of power for those that might be looking at them from afar, those that may have eyes on this region as a sort of prize. These are all possibilities. There's one final indicator about these affinities to Sinitic civilization, and that is the use of stamped earth. In the wall building itself, you have in the lower levels, simple deposition of blocks of clay and soil building up these mounds as you get higher and higher as the walls become bigger you start to see layers of stamped earth

and stamped earth is a cenitic technique it's not only found in ancient china but it is found in ancient china going back at least to the Neolithic period, so for several centuries, if not longer, earlier than what we see here. So we have an idea that there are affinities to the north, and we can talk about those interesting connections as well. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, let's go into those interesting connections right now, because it sounds like, from what you're saying, it may predate the Han invasion of Vietnam, of ancient Vietnam, but there definitely still seems to be these connections between Keloa and modern southern China. That's right. Those connections, as we mentioned at the beginning

of the conversation, they existed for quite some time well before the Bronze Age and we see them sort of intensifying in very interesting ways during the first millennium BC. Once the Han start to intrude in this area, I suspect, and many colleagues share this opinion, these kinds of connections existed where there were exotic forms of materials and resources that both regions wanted from the other region. As we mentioned earlier, there are connections between the Yunnan and northern Vietnam in terms of cultural practices, specifically with bronzes. In particular, there's the bronze drum, which we can talk about as well. But then there are other kinds of products, forest products and other kinds of resources

that are local in particular to these regions that people wanted to exchange. I think that the Han at some point decided, well, why don't we just move en masse into this area? We will have direct access and control over some of these resources. And that's what we see starting to happen in 100. The ascribed date is 111 BC. But around that time period, you see more and more of this sort of intrusion. We don't see the Han consolidating its power really until what's known as the Chung's Sister Rebellion. So if we want to talk about parallels with British legend, so Boudicca and her resistance to the Romans, that's very analogous to what we see happening at around the first century AD,

in the middle of the first century. We have this, once the Han come in, they start to become more and more repressive and take more and more control. There is a tale, a historical tale, but also some of it probably legendary as well, of these two women, the Chung sisters, who led a rebellion against the Han. And because of their revolt and uprising, the Han had to send their special general by the name of Ma Yuan, the great pacifier, into the region. He puts down the rebellion. And it's really at that point that the Han consolidate their control. They fully annex and control this area. Not only that, but supposedly he comes in,

starts to carve out the districts of Gaulois and puts them into different areas politically. And he, according to textual descriptions, begins to confiscate these bronze drums that had been serving as symbols of local authority and destroyed the drums. So there is a lot that begins to happen in that first century. And soon thereafter, you start to see an emerging Han-Viet elite class where you see a combination of material culture. So many of the elites in this area now blending very clearly these two kinds of aspects of civilization. So there's this long trajectory from the Neolithic right through to the historic period of connections that become more and more intensified into that

first millennium common era. It sounds very similar once again to the Romano-British elite that you see emerging in the decades after the Roman conquest of, well, the creation of the Roman province of Britannia. But I definitely want to get onto those bronzes now, but just before that, I found that absolutely astonishing what you're saying just there that roughly around the same time that buddhica launches a revolt against the romans in england or southern britain yeah you have hundreds and hundreds thousands of miles away to the east in southern vietnam these two sisters launching their own rebellion against their own invading power, this invading power, the Han dynasty in southern Vietnam. This is remarkable. Isn't that fascinating? What a

coincidence. And it happens right around the same time. I find very interesting the parallels between what is happening in Europe and what's happening here in Asia. And the parallels between the Roman Empire and the Han Empire, both expanding right around the same time. And we can have discussions about what that means for local populations. And this happens not just in northern Vietnam, but you see it happening in parts of southern China, parts of northeast Asia, parts of central Asia. As the Han expand into the quote-unquote realm of the barbarians, we can point to various kinds of resistance, of cultural impact, of cultural hybridity that begin to happen in the face of all of these events. And I find very interesting the prospect of comparing the material culture. So

if you can study the archaeological record of these various regions and say, how do we see these events playing out? What's the evidence for the Han expansion? But not only that, but how do we see comparisons in how local communities resisted or adopted or appropriated the Han culture in arrival. That is fascinating. And then you can also throw into the mix, well, let's compare that to what's happening in Europe and what's happening with the Gauls, for instance, how they respond, what are some of their kinds of legends,

what are their historical texts saying about this? That would be fascinating, I think, as a project. Absolutely. I think we've talked, well, not in this podcast, but we've talked before about the legendary figure of Vercingetorix in France and how he is considered a hero, this man who resisted the invaders, isn't it? And like Coelhoa is this important place in Vietnamese identity as this indigenous settlement before the Han invasion. That's right. That's right. So all of these ideas about the indigenous past, Vietnam is not alone in this. We can see this being played out in so many settings across the world. And it's particularly important, as I stated earlier,

in these moments of new independence, of national kinds of reckoning, of self-determination, particularly after colonial periods. So when French Indochina is in the picture, we have this sort of search for a pre-Sinitic, but pre-French history. And once we have World War, on the heels of World War II and all the conflicts, the French Indochina conflicts, there is this very important search for the material correlates. In fact, Ho Chi Minh was known to visit archaeological sites and to invoke some of these legendary accounts in some of his nationalist speeches. He said, we are the children or the successors of these generations of leaders from the past. And those connections echo through thousands of years, right through to the present day.

That kind of nationalistic sentiment still exists today. And it's very powerful. And again, it's not just restricted to Vietnam. We see it when we talk about every country in the world that commemorates its past, that has monuments and historical books commemorating that past, we can see clear parallels. Oh, no, absolutely. I shan't mention the Scottish independence referendum. And it was a centenary of the Basil of Bannockburn and Alex Salmon using that for that similar effect.

As you say, it's absolutely remarkable how you can see it up to the present day, can't you? But back to antiquity, back to Koh Loa and ancient Vietnam. You mentioned the bronzes earlier. Why are the bronzes at Koh Loa so significant? So the bronzes are part of not just Koh Loa, but they're part of what's known as the Dong Son culture. So I mentioned Koh Loa had the roof tiles and certain trappings that are restricted to its site. Some of the bronzes, however, are found all throughout northern Vietnam. And in particular, the iconic symbol of Dong Son bronzes is the drum itself. There have been over 200, I think,

that have been recovered in northern Vietnam. The bronze drum has also been found scattered throughout Vietnam to the south, throughout parts of Southeast Asia, all the way into parts of island Southeast Asia. They are also found in parts of southern southwestern China. And in fact, the highest concentration of bronze drums that have been found anywhere in this area would be in two locations. They happen to be in Yunnan province and in northern Vietnam and they correspond to both ends of that Red River. So there's something that happened earlier connecting these communities and it continues through the Bronze Age into the Iron Age and the bronze drum is an iconic figure. According to some accounts, those who had possession of a bronze drum had to be very

powerful and some people described them as kings. You did not have the ability to own one or have the ability to procure one unless you had a vast amount of power and authority. They represent something very, very important. And over the centuries, their uses have changed. We can only speculate about how they were used initially. But what's important is we can see depictions on many bronzes, not just the drums, but depictions showing their uses. They're used in ceremonies. Sometimes you see a bronze drum sitting on a boat. And on the boat, you'll see warriors, maybe sometimes with captives. You see them implicated in rice agricultural ceremonies. So they have a very important role to play

in cultural practices. What exactly, it's unclear, but we know that they were quite important. It's quite interesting. They sound like very much they're symbols of status and symbols of very, very, very high status. That's right. That's right. And we know of a few classic examples of massive drops. There's one that was found at Gaulois back in the 1980s. And this is a specimen, one of the largest and finest specimens that have been found anywhere. And I think we're looking at several thousand kilograms of crude material that would have been necessary to produce this one drum. And it was found buried in a specific location. Some wonder if some of the wealth that was buried that has been found at Golov may have been buried in the face of invading forces. Not far from where the bronze drum was found, outside the main entrance to the south of

the site, there was a horde of bronze projectile points that was found. Thousands all in one location. Some speculate that maybe this represents a form of wealth, perhaps this was some kind of ceremony, or perhaps wealth was being hidden in the face of an invading force with the expectation that you might be coming back at some point to reclaim it. But the legendary accounts not only talk about An Zeng Vung, I mentioned earlier that he was betrayed by his daughter, according to these colorful tales, and that his son-in-law, the prince of a different kingdom, then took possession of the crossbow,

gave it to his father, and allowed that rival kingdom to come and invade and take over. How much of that is actual fact is debatable, but it points to the likelihood that these were defenses, these ramparts were defenses, and that there were competing kingdoms in the region. So maybe there's something to that particular tale. Maybe someone was bearing wealth in the face of potential military threat. So from what you're saying, the military aspect of this citadel, it does sound very similar. We see it in other points in history where a citadel, a strong point,

forms the nucleus of a certain community where people would run to that citadel, a strong point forms the nucleus of a certain community where people would run to that citadel perhaps if they were under attack from a neighbouring civilisation. But it was also where everything was managed, not just military aspects, but also political and administration. Right. I suspect that what we see here was not just a seat of power, but also an administrative hub. You have lots of people living in this area. The area, as we mentioned, is agriculturally fertile, very productive. And presumably, you have lots of folks living not only within the confines of the walls themselves, but outside in the hinterland, supporting whatever functions of the city existed. Those ramparts probably served multiple functions.

Not only were they defensive, and I have lots of data that I can point to that show that they were defensive because there were debates about what functions they serve, but I think they were also symbolic. They helped to identify the power to impress upon local populations, but also people living further afield,

how much power was centralized here. Look what we have the ability to do. We can put all this together. And perhaps this might have been a center for refuge in times of conflict. If those communities living on the outskirts face threat, they could come and find shelter within the confines of the ramparts. But a lot of the survey work that we've done in the past few years has been aimed at identifying not just sites within Golua, but also the primary functions of the ramparts. We didn't want to just date them.

We wanted to understand why they existed. We can see along the surface of the ramparts, we noticed that there were certain areas that were elevated, bumps. We started to figure out that they were regularly spaced and they weren't parts of the natural terrain. We suspected originally that many of the areas of the wall were connected because of natural hills and topography. That's the easiest way to keep building. Now we also complement that knowledge by understanding that those bumps probably were parts of these defensive features.

They're spaced at a distance that would maximize the effective firing range, overlapping fields of fire for projectile technologies that existed at the time. So essentially, they're located where bastions would be located. And so those clues combined with others suggest that this was a very calculated, pre-planned system of fortifications. Once again, bringing back to Western Europe, I'm thinking Hadrian's Wall and the turrets and the mile castles, which they set out every Roman mile. It's a very pre-planned set of fortifications. And once again, it seems with the ramparts and the walls of Koloa, you see something very similar. That's right. That's right. Now, this does not preclude other functions like social demarcation of space, maybe elements of flood control, maybe the control

of water, because there are ditches on the exterior sides of the walls that probably were filled with water at points in time that could channel water resources throughout the site, maybe facilitate irrigation for farming on a large scale intensive basis, but also to help with transportation needs, moving people and materials throughout the site itself, throughout the settlement. So all of these are potential functions, and they probably existed simultaneously. But that does not, I think, take away from the fact that defense against some kind of threat was one of the main functions. And if you think about it, the scale at which these defenses existed, there is only one area where a scale of threat could have existed or could have come from and would not have been local.

So it reinforces, in my mind at least, that whatever's happening to the North during the tail end of the Warring States period. So this is right around the time that the Qin dynasty comes into power and begins to consolidate its rule over vast amounts of territory. Then you see the imperial phase of Chinese history begin with the Qin empire. This is part of Qin Shi Huangdi, the famous terracotta soldiers in his mausoleum and so forth. This is all happening around the same time. So with all those events happening to the north in the central plains of China,

that probably had ripple effects. People in times of war tend to flee areas that may be threatening. And if they're fleeing as refugees, they may be taking their ideas and cultural life ways with them. And some of those folks may have made their way into parts of southern China and northern Vietnam. And I can't substantiate this, but one possibility is that you have families coming, maybe potentially elite families, fleeing their homelands in parts of southern China and bringing with them their knowledge and their cultural

practices into these areas and then mixing in with the local indigenous population. This may account for why we see the emulative strategies that begin to emerge. There you go. Wow. Yeah. Hybrid society from refugees into trouble in the north. But got to move on. The Koloa, how long does it enjoy its golden age? It's a big question, but when do you think we start seeing its decline? I think the golden age is right in that window that we mentioned earlier, around 300 BC onward, maybe to about 100. It's not long after that that we begin to see the Han intrusion fully formed. And at that point, if the textual accounts are accurate, if Ma Yuan does indeed begin redistricting efforts in this area

and setting up boundaries, that's probably when we see Koloa as a sort of political capital begin to fade in prominence. And the shift happens to other areas of the delta across the river to the south for instance into areas where hanoi is currently located i think that there are shifts to other areas one thing that i think is very interesting is there was a cinematic domination period that really gets kicked off after mah yuwan arrives it lasts for several centuries right up until the 10th century. So from the time

the Chung Sister Rebellion is put down in the first century up until the 10th century. The first indigenous Vietnamese king to take power as an independent polity is Ngo Quynh. And according to the historical accounts, he moves his seat of power away from Hanoi across the river to the north back to Golua. He claims that area as his seat of power. And one can speculate why he did this. Perhaps the motivation was to make a demonstration. I am the successor. Generations link me to the kings of the past before the Chinese were here.

And so this is a very symbolic gesture to choose that location, that geographic space as a new political locality. Absolutely. It sounds like not just in more modern times, the legacy of Koloa lives on. It also sounds like in what we might say the Middle Ages and early modern times as well, Koloa's importance still remained. It still had this significant legacy. That's right. That's right. That's right. I find it fascinating.

If those accounts are accurate, the selection, the motivation behind that selection by Ngo Quynh would have indicated that those folk tales were still very much prominent in local thinking and in memory and in ideas about resistance to this intrusion by a foreign power.

So much so that they echoed through the centuries. And he selects Gaulois. The capital then shifts again numerous times over the ensuing centuries, but the connection persists right through today. So we can talk about how Gaulois still remains very much in the national imagination as this important location. And if you wanted to broaden the geographic space a little bit, then you can talk about how the Red River Delta itself, where Co Loa is located, and then Hanoi is located just across the river. All of this area has been significant, so significant for Vietnamese identity for thousands of years. significant for Vietnamese identity for thousands of years. That's absolutely astonishing. It really is. When you think of a site like Co Loa,

when you think of big, impressive archaeological sites, you might think of in Southeast Asia like Borobudur, Angkor Wat and that lot. But it sounds like the longevity of this site, the importance of it for Vietnamese culture, well, since the Neolithic times, it's astonishing we don't look at it more. I mean, from an outside of Vietnam perspective. That's right. So as a graduate student, I learned about the great civilizations, the great cities and urban centers of the world, including Southeast Asia. When Southeast Asia gets mentioned, sites like the ones you just mentioned are the ones that get invoked.

And they date to a later time period. We're talking about the Common Era. Golwa had never been in any of the materials that I had read until I started to dig deeper. And that's when I realized, you know, you have a very important case study of political complexity and urbanism that predates many of these other famous cases from Southeast Asia. And yet very few people outside of Vietnam know about the site. And that was one of my motivations for working at the site was not only to understand its role in Vietnamese history, its place in Vietnamese history, and to clarify some of those debates, but also to inject the site and case study into a larger theoretical conversation within anthropology and archaeology about the early civilizations of the world.

So that when we talk about Southeast Asia, we can see earlier examples and some variability in the archaeological record. And just because we don't have the same kinds of monuments in stone that you see at Angkor, for instance, does not mean that there is an absence of political complexity that could have existed here. We can see clearly, even in the tropical setting where the raw materials were earthen and that can erode over time, that something powerful could have existed, that this is a different brand of urbanism that we can point to. And I hope that moving forward, more and more

people will know about the site and will know about other potential sites that could also be in the landscape, not just in northern Vietnam, but elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Absolutely. And best of luck with all that, finding out more about the ancient history of this part of the world. And regarding your work at Côte d'Ivoire and the archaeology there, can we say we've only just scratched the surface? Absolutely. I truly believe that. There is so much work that has been done, but there are so many questions that that work has sort of opened up. We know very little, for instance, about where everybody was living. Potentially it's underneath all the

modern habitation right now, but we don't have clear answers. We don't know where massive cemeteries might have been. We don't have the remnants of tombs of kings or elites that may have existed. We have so much left to do. My colleagues and I, in the last couple of years, have attempted to do remote sensing on the ground. And we've used various methods like magnetometry to try to locate sites of interest. And this is a proof of concept kind of project. It hadn't been attempted before at Go Loa. So we embarked on this. Over the last few seasons that we've done this, we've covered a small percentage of the area, maybe 2%. So when you say just scratching the surface, I can validate

that by saying, yes, there's so much left to do. We need an army. I want to actually mention by name some of my colleagues. i'd be remiss not to the the colleagues that i've worked with over the years in vietnam include uh ching hang hip who's at the institute of archaeology as well as live and toy who was also our main collaborator on the original excavations there is the conservation center of vietnam it's the national heritage conservation center that oversees only two sites in Vietnam. Go Loa is one of them, and the Thang Long Citadel is the other. That's in the capital city of Hanoi. And I also want to mention my colleague Russ Quick, who's been doing the magnetometry work

with me over the last couple of years. But again, we are just scratching the surface. Well, it sounds like when we get over this pandemic and they'll be traveling again, you guys have got a lot of work to keep going on with. So it doesn't sound like you're not going to be busy anytime soon. No, no, there's plenty left to do. We'd love to know how the environment changes over time when we start to see cultivation happening. There are clues that the area was heavily forested right around the middle of the first millennium, and that in a sort of archaeological blink of an eye, all that gets cleared. And then you start to see farming and ramparts happening all at once. So something very significant happens, not slowly over time,

but some events seem to happen very quickly. What accounts for that? We don't know. And just to finish off, i believe you've written a book on the subject of ancient vietnam yes that's right so the origins of ancient vietnam is published by oxford university press from 2015 and in it there are lots of details about some of that work that we did early on and i think it would be of interest mainly for archaeologists but i think there's a lot in there that non-archaeologists, non-specialists working in different regions of the world may be interested in as well. Particularly some of the stuff that we talked about in terms of the intersection between nationalism and the material record in history. Brilliant.

Nam, this has been an absolutely fascinating chat. I could keep asking questions for hours, but I've got to end it here. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure. It's an honor to be a part of this thank you