The Sa Huỳnh culture was a culture in modern-day central and southern

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

that flourished between 1000 BC and 200 AD. Archaeological sites from the culture have been discovered from the

Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...

to Quang Binh province in central Vietnam. The Sa Huynh people were most likely the predecessors of the

Cham people The Cham (Cham: ''Čaṃ'') or Champa people (Cham: , ''Urang Campa''; vi, Người Chăm or ; km, ជនជាតិចាម, ) are an Austronesian ethnic group. From the 2nd century to 1832 the Cham populated Champa, a contiguous territo ...

, an Austronesian-speaking people and the founders of the kingdom of

Champa Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd cen ...

.Higham, C., 2014, Early Mainland Southeast Asia, Bangkok: River Books Co., Ltd.,

Description

The site at Sa Huỳnh was discovered in 1909. Sa Huỳnh sites were rich in locally worked iron artefacts, typified by axes, swords, spearheads, knives and

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...

s. In contrast,

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

artifacts were dominant in the

Đông Sơn culture The Dong Son culture or the Lạc Việt culture (named for modern village Đông Sơn, a village in Thanh Hóa, Vietnam) was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centred at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the ...

sites found in northern Vietnam and elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia. The Sa Huỳnh culture

cremated Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...

adults and buried them in jars covered with lids, a practice unique to the culture. Ritually broken offerings usually accompanied the jar burials. The culture is also typified by its unique ear

ornaments An ornament is something used for decoration. Ornament may also refer to: Decoration *Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts *Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve on ...

featuring two-headed animals, believed by some to depict

saola The saola (''Pseudoryx nghetinhensis''), also called spindlehorn, Asian unicorn, or infrequently, Vu Quang bovid, is one of the world's rarest large mammals, a forest-dwelling bovine native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was descr ...

. The ornaments were commonly made from

jade Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...

(

nephrite Nephrite is a variety of the calcium, magnesium, and iron-rich amphibole minerals tremolite or actinolite (Aggregate (geology), aggregates of which also make up one form of asbestos). The chemical formula for nephrite is calcium, Ca2(magnesium, ...

), but also made from

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

Bead A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under ...

ornaments were also commonly found in Sa Huynh burials, most commonly made from glass.

Trade network

The Sa Huỳnh culture showed evidence of an extensive trade network that existed between 500 BC to AD 1500, known as the Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere (named after the Sa Huỳnh culture and the

Kalanay Cave The Kalanay Cave is a small cave located on the Masbate Island, island of Masbate in central Philippines. The cave is located specifically at the northwest coast of the island within the municipality of Aroroy, Masbate, Aroroy. The artifacts recov ...

Masbate Masbate, officially the Province of Masbate ( Masbateño: ''Probinsya san Masbate''; tl, Lalawigan ng Masbate), is an island province in the Philippines located near the midsection of the nation's archipelago. Its provincial capital is Masbate C ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

). It was mainly between Sa Huỳnh and the Philippines, but also extended into archaeological sites in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Southern Thailand Southern Thailand, Southern Siam or Tambralinga is a southernmost cultural region of Thailand, separated from Central Thailand region by the Kra Isthmus. Geography Southern Thailand is on the Malay Peninsula, with an area of around , bounded ...

, and northeastern

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

. It is characterized by shared red-slipped pottery traditions, as well as double-headed and penannular ornaments known as ''

lingling-o ''Lingling-o'' or ''ling-ling-o'', is a type of penannular or double-headed pendant or amulet that has been associated with various late Neolithic to late Iron Age Austronesian cultures. Most ''lingling-o'' were made in jade workshops in the Ph ...

'' made from materials like green

(sourced from

), green

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...

(from

Mindoro Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ) and has a population of 1,408,454 as of 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of Luz ...

), black

(from Hà Tĩnh) and clay (from Vietnam and the

Northern Philippines Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political cen ...

). Sa Huynh also produced beads made from glass,

carnelian Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker (the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often use ...

agate Agate () is a common rock formation, consisting of chalcedony and quartz as its primary components, with a wide variety of colors. Agates are primarily formed within volcanic and metamorphic rocks. The ornamental use of agate was common in Ancie ...

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickl ...

zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of the r ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

and

garnet Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. All species of garnets possess similar physical properties and crystal forms, but differ in chemical composition. The different s ...

; most of whom use materials that are also

import An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...

ed.

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

-style

bronze mirror Bronze mirrors preceded the glass mirrors of today. This type of mirror, sometimes termed a copper mirror, has been found by archaeology, archaeologists among elite assemblages from various cultures, from Etruscan art, Etruscan Italy to Japan. T ...

s were also found in Sa Huynh sites.

Timeline of Iron age

ImageSize = width:800 height:80 PlotArea = width:720 height:55 left:65 bottom:20 AlignBars = justify Colors = id:time value:rgb(0.7,0.7,1) # id:period value:rgb(1,0.7,0.5) # id:age value:rgb(0.95,0.85,0.5) # id:era value:rgb(1,0.85,0.5) # id:eon value:rgb(1,0.85,0.7) # id:filler value:gray(0.8) # background bar id:black value:black Period = from:-1300 till:500 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-1300 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-1300 PlotData = align:center textcolor:black fontsize:8 mark:(line,black) width:15 shift:(0,-5) bar:Vietnam color:era from: -771 till: -221 shift:(0,5) text:

Sa Huỳnh culture The Sa Huỳnh culture was a culture in modern-day central and southern Vietnam that flourished between 1000 BC and 200 AD. Archaeological sites from the culture have been discovered from the Mekong Delta to Quang Binh province in central Vietna ...

from: -221 till: 500 shift:(0,4) text: Óc Eo culture bar:Vietnam color:filler from: -221 till: 500 shift:(0,-7) text:

Imperial Vietnam The Empire of Vietnam (; Literary Chinese and Contemporary Japanese: ; Modern Japanese: ja, ベトナム帝国, Betonamu Teikoku, label=none) was a short-lived puppet state of Imperial Japan governing the former French protectorates of Annam ...

bar: Philippines color:era from: -500 till: -108 text: Ifugao society bar:Philippines color:filler from: -108 till: -18 shift:(0,5) text:

Ancient Barangay In early Philippine history, Barangay is the term historically used by scholars to describe the complex sociopolitical units which were the dominant organizational pattern among the various peoples of the Philippine archipelago , . in the peri ...

from: -18 till: 500 text: Archaic epoch bar: Indonesia color:era from: -500 till: -108 text:

Prehistory of Indonesia Prehistoric Indonesia is a prehistoric period in the Indonesian archipelago that spanned from the Pleistocene period to about the 4th century CE when the Kutai people produced the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia. Unlike the clear ...

bar:Indonesia color:filler from: -108 till: -18 shift:(0,4) text:

Buni culture The Buni culture is a prehistoric clay pottery culture that flourished in coastal northern West Java, Jakarta and Banten around 400 BC to 100 AD and probably survived until 500 AD. The culture was named after its first discovered archaeologica ...

from: -18 till: 500 text: Early Kingdoms :::''Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details'' ::: Prehistoric (or

Proto-historic Protohistory is a period between prehistory and history during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted the existence of those pre-literate groups in their own writings. For example, in ...

) Iron Age Historic Iron Age

Artifacts

File:Bronze weapon Sa Huynh Culture.JPG, Bronze dagger File:Pottery vase Sa Huynh Culture.JPG, Pottery vase File:Pottery fruit tray Sa Huynh Culture 2.JPG, Pottery fruit tray File:Pottery burial jar Sa Huynh Cultue.JPG, Pottery burial jar File:Three node pendant (Jade), Artefacts of Phu Hoa site(Dong Nai province).JPG, Jade penannular

File:Bicephalous pendant (Jade), Artefacts of Phu Hoa site(Dong Nai province) 01.jpg, Jade double-headed

Notes

References