In Luang Prabang, the team began using the new workspace and loved the roomy 8-person workstations, collection storeroom, and shaded outdoor space. All of the 2023 members remained on board for 2024, leading to a happy reunion and deeper skill developments in archaeological illustration and ceramic variability, all leading to a very productive season.
Issarawan Yoopom taught and supervised trainees in technical drawing of ceramics, using pencil and graph paper. About 145 technical pencil drawings of the sampled sherds were produced, far surpassing the 2023 season’s total of 90 drawings. Marie-Claude Boileau will bring the pencil drawings to Philadelphia for creation of digital illustrations suitable for publication.
Keolotfa Silivong and Issarawan Yoopom work on technical drawings for MMAP.
Photographs of the sampled sherds and samples themselves were taken by Souliya Bounxaythip and added to the export permit. Marie-Claude Boileau continued her detailed macro study of earthenware types collected from sites tested and surveyed by MMAP. Marie-Claude collected sherds from the 4 sites with MMAP test excavations and 10 sherds were added to the 80 sherds from 2022/23.
Naho inspecting hundreds of stoneware sherds recovered from MMAP surveys and excavations.
Naho Shimizu and Marie-Claude Boileau previously emphasized sherds and stoneware recovered at or near Ban Xanghai. In 2024 Naho Shimizu assessed about 300 stoneware samples, both local and imported, and selected in consultation with Marie-Claude and Souliya 40 more specimens for continued NAA study in the United States. Naho made a PowerPoint of her selections and observations.
Joyce White assessed stratigraphic distributions of sherds from reconstructed vessels and pot sections within sites, especially Tham An Mah where several vessels were reconstructed from sherds excavated from multiple contexts. This study helps to assess depositional and disturbance processes from tested sites, especially at Tham An Mah.
Marie-Claude and Joyce coded into the MMAP database more than 1000 individual sherds, including all sherds excavated from 3 of the 4 sites tested by MMAP: Tham An Mah, Tham Vang Ta Leow, and Phou Pha Khao. This coding will help in defining the ceramic assemblages both individually at each site, and in comparison with each other.
Other Accomplishments
A local potter demonstrating coil and slow wheel formation process
The team went on an excursion to Ban Chan Nua in Chomphet district on December 25th to learn and understand the processes of stoneware production that historically characterize the region’s kiln technology for high-fired ceramics. Naho Shimizu’s multi-author publication on her assessment of trade ceramics recovered from MMAP excavations and survey sites was published in 2024 in the Japanese Journal of Southeast Asian Archaeology, (vol. 43).
Next Steps
- Hopefully, the new MOU between the Lao Department of Heritage and the ISEAA will be signed soon.
- In Philadelphia, Marie-Claude Boileau will complete the petrographic analysis of about 90 MMAP earthenware sherds, including the 50 sampled in 2022 and the 30 sampled in 2023, and 10 in 2024. The objective is to prepare an article on MMAP earthenware to submit to a peer-reviewed journal such as the Journal of Archaeological Science.
- In Philadelphia, Marie-Claude with collaborators will continue the NAA study of the 40 additional stoneware samples, also with the intention of a peer-reviewed article, possibly an article that will include both the earthenware and the stoneware. The objective is to have a draft ready for submission by September 2025.
Marie-Claude removes a sherd sample