Thai History vs Thai Archaeology

Edited by Sander - 07-Aug-2007 at 12:40

If you go to any bookstore or library, Thai history books are all located in the fiction section.

    After doing an internet search I was quite surprised by the diversity of the results.

Archaeologically speaking the origin of the Thais is pretty mudane. Remains have been found in the country back until 40,000 years ago. In the 1st millenina BCE a scattered group of Tai speakers emerged living in NE India, Northern SE Asia and South Western China. Around 1800 years ago civilisation began to kick in with the Tai speakers in Nothern Thailand, Lao and Burma building large towns and forming political bodies. Evetually these people would become the Mon, Thai and Lao respectively.

However reading the historic accounts a very different picture emerges. Wiki tells us the Thais are in fact not these Tai speakers who developed over thousands of years but a seperate group of invaders from China in the 10th century. Siamese History and Culture Site tells us they were refugees fleeing the Mongols and the highly respected Sunsite gives several versions of the story and lets us choose for ourselves.

One problem with the archaeological account is it's effectively saying that the Thais and hilltribes are not only desended from the same people but the Thais are basically hilltribemen themselves. With the fervant racism of Thais, lead by the government, towards hilltribes, I was wondering how much Thai history is a case of hiding the past and inventing a fanciful medieval migration theory?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Thailand
http://sunsite.au.ac.th/thailand/thai_his/origin.html
http://www.usmta.com/Thai-History-Frame.htm

    

Edited by Paul - 28-Dec-2006 at 10:09