One Million Years in Thailand

Picture a world where time circles in uneven loops, humanity easily reduced to a collectively self-destructive species, while “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Those who remember the past—or have studied and understood a bit—are condemned to watch as everyone repeats it” goes a riff on a comic based on George Santayana’s 1905 observation. Is time looping back on itself like an endless, poorly edited sitcom, humanity stumbling through scenes?

Prehistoric Thailand may be traced back as far as 1,000,000 years ago from the fossils and stone tools found in northern and western Thailand. At an archaeological site in Lampang, northern Thailand, Homo erectus fossils of “Lampang Man” dating back 1,000,000 – 500,000 years have been discovered. Stone tools have been widely found in Kanchanaburi, Ubon Ratchathani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, and Lopburi. Prehistoric cave paintings have also been found in these regions, dating back 10,000 years.

Homo erectus is believed to have originated in Africa and then migrated to other parts of the Old World, including Asia and possibly Europe. This migration is significant as it represents a major dispersal event for early humans. Homo erectus was the first hominin species to exhibit a human-like body plan and gait. They were also the first to master fire and to widely inhabit different regions of the world. While considered a potential ancestor to Homo sapiens, the exact lineage is not fully resolved. Some researchers suggest a direct ancestor-descendant relationship, while others propose a more complex scenario involving separate evolutionary paths. 

As it turns out, modern Thais share no lineage with Lampang Man. DNA traces back to African roots, per the Recent Single-Origin Hypothesis, with no interbreeding. Newcomers arrived, erasing older traces.

There is evidence of continuous human habitation in present-day Thailand from 20,000 years ago to the present day.  By the Neolithic, 10,000 to 4,000 years ago, farming sparked the “Revolution.” Khao Toh Chong in Krabi shows dietary shifts tied to rising seas, hinting at domestication of crops.

The earliest evidence of rice growing is dated at 2,000 BCE, brought by Yangtze River migrants alongside millet, cattle, and pigs. Lang Kamnan Cave, above the Khwae Noi, sheltered hunter-gatherers. Khok Phanom Di, with 154 graves packed with fish bones and hearths, suggests a coastal drama—strontium isotopes reveal immigrant women integrated with local men, blending cultures.  Areas comprising what is now Thailand participated in the Maritime Jade Road, as ascertained by archeological research. The trading network existed for 3,000 years, between 2000 BC to 1000 AD.

The Bronze Age, 3300-1200 BC, introduced metalwork. Ban Chiang ranks as the earliest known centre of copper and bronze production in Southeast Asia, its crucibles and bells are radiocarbon dated at 1050 BC. The Bronze Age was a period of cultural development when the most advanced metalworking consisted of techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ore, and then alloying those metals to cast bronze. There are claims of an earlier appearance of tin bronze in Thailand in the 5th millennium BC.

Iron appeared around 500 BC, with iron tools and trade goods from India to Vietnam.

Mass migration of Tai peoples from China (Guangxi) to Mainland Southeast Asia and Northern Thailand occurred between the 8-10c AD. The Mainland region was ruled by the Khmer Empire from 900. In 1220, the Khmer-controlled Sukhothai was conquered by the Thais and made the capital of the Sukhothai Kingdom. By 1220, the long declining Khmer Empire was mostly overrun by Thais. By 13c, the Sukhothai Kingdom (1238–1438) had replaced the Mon kingdoms in central Thailand. During the reign of King Ramkhamhaeng, In 1283 the Thai script was created; the arts flourished, Thai institutions were developed, and people called themselves "Thai" which means “free” from foreign rule.

The name Siam (Thai: สยาม RTGS: Sayam) may have originated from Pali (suvaṇṇabhūmi, "land of gold"), Sanskrit श्याम (śyāma, "dark"), or Mon ရာမည (rhmañña, "stranger"), with likely the same root as Shan and Ahom. The Thai country name has mostly been Mueang Thai. The country's designation as Siam by Westerners likely came from the Portuguese. Portuguese chronicles noted that Borommatrailokkanat, king of Ayutthaya, sent an expedition to the Malacca Sultanate, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, in 1455. Following their conquest of Malacca in 1511, the Portuguese sent a diplomatic mission to the Ayutthaya Kingdom. The explorer Duarte Fernandes was the first European to arrive in Ayutthaya in 1511. The Mandarin name for Siam is Xiān luó (Chinese: 暹罗). A century later, on 15 August 1612, The Globe, an East India Company merchantman bearing a letter from King James I, arrived in "the Road of Syam." By the end of the 19th century, Siam had become enshrined in geographical nomenclature.

in the 1850s, King Mongkut (Rama IV) embraced Western innovations and initiated modernization. During European colonization of Southeast Asia (1511-1957) only Thailand remained independent. This was due to multiple factors: the centralizing and modernization reforms enacted by King Chulalongkorn, a political policy which balanced British and French colonial interests, King Rama V made diplomatic visits to Europe in 1897 and 1907, large territorial concessions to French Indochina, and the French and British maintained Siam as a buffer state to avoid conflicts between their colonies. An 1874 edict was issued for reforms which abolished slavery in 1905.

Siam became an ally of the United Kingdom in 1917 and joined the Allies of World War I. The Siamese revolution of 1932 ended centuries of absolute monarchy. The government changed to a constitutional monarchy with King Prajadhipok. The country name was formally changed to Thailand in 1939, “Land of the Free” in 1939. At first neutral, Thailand joined the Axis after the Japanese invaded on 8 December 1941. Thailand annexed disputed territories in Burma (Saharat Thai Doem), and Malaysia (Sirat Malai). After World War II these territories were ceded in return for admission to the United Nations, dropping all wartime claims and U.S. aid.

During World War II, Dutch archaeologist Hendrik Robert van Heekeren was apprehended by the Japanese army while conducting research in Indonesia and taken to Kanchanaburi to construct the infamous Death Railway. There, he unearthed archaic stone tools near the Ban Kao railroad station and delivered them to Prof Hallam Movius of Harvard University in the United States for investigation after the war. https://www.bangkokpost.com/life/travel/2301670/prologue-to-the-past

His discovery sparked the Thai-Danish Prehistoric Expedition project of 1960-62. It was Thailand's first international-standard archaeological excavation effort, and prompted expeditions and excavations all around the country.

In Kanchanaburi, a human skeleton dating from 5,000 to 9,000 years ago was discovered in the Phra Cave—the oldest skeleton in the western region. Its legs were bowed and Hoabinhian core tools were buried in the same tomb. According to analysis, this skeleton was a hybrid of Mongoloids and Australo-Melanesian islanders. (The Hoabinhian is a lithic techno-complex of archaeological sites associated with assemblages in Southeast Asia from the late Pleistocene to the Holocene, dated to c. 10,000-2000 BC. It is attributed to hunter-gatherer societies of the region whose technological variability over time is poorly understood. In 2016, a rock shelter was identified in Yunnan, China, 40 km from the border with Myanmar, where artifacts belonging to the Hoabinhian technocomplex were recognized, dating from 41,500 BC.)

The Ban Kao civilisation is identified as a Neolithic agricultural society. According to archaeological evidence, prehistoric people arrived in Thailand's western region and began to form villages, where they could reside in their permanent houses around Khwae Yai and Khwae Noi rivers as well as the upper part of the Tha Chin river basin.

Archaeological remains found in Kanchanaburi date back to the 4th century, with evidence of trade with surrounding regions at that time. Very little is known about the historical Khmer influence in Kanchanaburi, but Prasat Muang Sing, one of the country's most well-known Khmer sites, provides evidence of their occupation.

Not much was historically recorded about Kanchanaburi province before the reign of King Rama I, but some historians believe that the province was of strategic importance during the Ayutthaya period, since it was on the invasion route from Burma.

In World War II, the Burma-Siam Railway turned Kanchanaburi into a graveyard. Built by 13,000 POWs and up to 100,000 civilians, it served Japan’s war machine. The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery (known locally as the Don-Rak War Cemetery) is the main prisoner of war (POW) cemetery for victims of Japanese imprisonment while building the Burma Railway. It is on Saeng Chuto Road, the main road through tow, adjacent to an older Chinese cemetery, and contains 6,982 graves of British, Australian and Dutch prisoners of war.

The JEATH War Museum—two sites, one in Kanchanaburi’s bustling heart, the other by the fabled Bridge over the River Kwai—are also monuments to the Death Railway, the 1942-1943 project where where the Japanese army used Allied POWs to carve a railway through jungle mountains. JEATH is a clumsy acronym for Japanese, English, Australian, American, Thai, and Dutch; the Thai title, Phíphítháphan Songkhram Wát Tâi, ties it to the temple grounds where it all began.

Founded in 1977 by the chief abbot of Wat Chaichumpol, Venerable Phra Theppanyasuthee, the museum sits at the confluence of the Khwae Yai and Khwae Noi rivers, at the heart of the saga of the Bridge over the River Kwai (“kway” being the correct pronunciation). The railway itself, dreamed up by the Japanese to link Thailand and Burma for their Western Asia ambitions, was a meat grinder. Over 400,000 laborers and POWs perished—of disease, starvation, and sheer exhaustion.

The museum is divided into two distinct sections, each offering a unique perspective on the wartime experience. One building houses artifacts including items related to the Prisoner of War camps, bridge construction sites, and the railway itself… such as weapons, tools, uniforms, medals, and personal belongings that give insights into the daily lives of both Allied and Japanese troops.

Among the museum’s notable exhibits is a 500-pound bomb, originally intended to be dropped on the railway bridge as a deterrent to halt Japanese construction efforts. However, the bomb failed to detonate and now stands in the museum yard.

The other section of the museum features a collection of small bamboo huts, meticulously recreated to resemble the living quarters of prisoners of war. Within these huts, visitors can view a poignant display of photographs, paintings, and portraits depicting the harsh living conditions endured by the men. These visuals offer a glimpse into the challenging realities of daily life in the prison camps, including the meager food rations and rampant diseases that plagued POWs.

When I was there one time, a woman with her husband and two sons mentioned that her father was in one of the photos. He was Dutch and had been working on a rubber plantation in Indonesia on December 6-7, 1941, and taken prisoner by the Japanese. As a non-combatant, he was given the privelege of being one of the 4-5 men on kitchen crew—those were the guys who could eat extra food before rationing it out to the thousands of other POWs, and weren’t beaten up as much by their captors. Indeed, in the photo, he wasn’t nearly as emaciated as the POWs in other photos. I asked, and she told me that he had never talked about his experiences. Surely some survivor’s guilt there, on top of the general horror of being a POW slave-laborer in the tropics during WWII.

I like 1983’s “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (starring David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto, who composed the haunting soundtrack) as a lens on the experience (and black & white classics that I haven’t seen in 40 years…Nobi, Biruma no Tategoto…I rewatch Kurosawa and others). When two very different cultures clash, collective psychological reversion to common denominators, then tribalism, is an easy slide. A few lone nuts act out; foxy state news portrays ‘astroturfed’ groups and staged events as actual, spontaneous. Political kayfabe that 50% of the population know is fake and are incredulous, 20% don’t know, and 30% know but don’t care? Numbers may need adjustment.

From stone tools to bronze, to iron bridges, history is cyclical, pendulous. The JEATH War Museum stands as a snapshot of that cycle, a testament to the species’ march. Yet, there’s a strange tenacity in these relics, a hint that even in the worst of times, humans cling to meaning. Viktor Frankl realized this. Frankl spent a total of three years in four camps: Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Kaufering III, and Türkheim. He lost his father in the Terezín Ghetto, his brother and mother at Auschwitz, and his wife in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. His sister, Stella, escaped to Australia. Soon after the war, Frankle wrote his must-read psychology text in a couple of weeks. Word to the wise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning