3. WILLIAM HENDERSON, a Ban Chiang Project volunteer, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, USA (excerpt from the Ban Chiang Update: Newsletter for the Friends of Ban Chiang. Issue 1. Fall 1994/Winter 1995)
Volunteering for the Ban Chiang Project is always a challenge. When I entered the bustling office I saw four volunteers reconstructing pots and several artists laboring over detailed drawings. Joyce handed me a printout of data that I was supposed to shape into "battleship curves" on the computer. From that point on I have worked on the rim sherd analysis.
The project I am working on will take years to complete. I am trying to organize a comprehensive typology for rim shapes in the area and then to demonstrate strategraphic changes in shape over time. This is essential for developing regional ceramic sequences. Other parts of the world may have developed these sequences decades ago. We are just starting to do this essential task in Thailand. Ceramic sequences enable the archaeologist to relate sites to each other. They help the archaeologist to estimate the date of a site during field survey. No one has ever done this for the entire Sakon Nakon Basin of northeast Thailand.
| back to list | go to research 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| back to greeting | back to index |