The current issue of Archaeology magazine (July/August 2006) presents an article by Tom Gidwitz entitled "Uncovering Ancient Thailand". You can find a synopsis and one rather boring photo at Archaeology magazine.

The articles follows noted Southeast Asian archaeologist Charles Higham's exploits in trying to uncover the earliest signs of human civilization in Thailand. A recent dig has been at Ban Non Wat, close to Phimai (important in the later Angkor culture). People were living in Ban Non Wat since at least 2100 BCE, and archaeologists are finding rich deposits in graves from the Neolithic through the Bronze and Iron Ages. A new puzzle has been found in that five bodies have been found buried on their sides, atypical for anything else seen in the region. Shell-created grave goods are different than anything else known in the region, too.

Another site, Khok Phanom Di, near Bankok, is rich in marine shellfish middens. Although currently this site is high and dry, four thousand years ago it was shoreline. These people were potters and fisherfolk who used snares and hooks to catch seafood. Rice would not grow in this salty environment, so they would trade for rice inland, often with their pottery.

Higham speculates that bronze was not a metal the Bronze-Age natives learned to work on their own; that like so many things, the skills came along the Silk Road from the middle east.

A very meaty and intersting article that this synopsis cannot begin to do justice.