4,500-year-old trading network uncovered in Vietnam

Melbourne: Archaeologists have uncovered a vast trading network which operated in Vietnam from around 4,500 years ago up until around 3,000 years ago.

The discovery significantly changes what is known about early Vietnamese culture, researchers said.

A study by researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) shows a number of settlements along the Mekong Delta region of Southern Vietnam were part of a sophisticated scheme where large volumes of items were manufactured and circulated over hundreds of kilometres.

"We knew some artifacts were being moved around but this shows evidence for a major trade network that also included specialist tool-makers and technological knowledge. It is a whole different ball game," said lead researcher Catherine Frieman from ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Frieman, an expert in ancient stone tools, analysed a collection of stone items found by researchers at a site called Rach Nui in Southern Vietnam.

She found a sandstone grinding stone used to make tools such as axe heads out of stone believed to come from a quarry located over 80 kilometres away in the upper reaches of the Dong Nai River valley.

"The Rach Nui region had no stone resources. So the people must have been importing the stone and working it to produce the artifacts," Frieman said.

"People were becoming experts in stone tool making even though they live nowhere near the source of any stone," she said.

"Vietnam has an amazing archaeological record with a number of settlements and sites that provide significant information on the complex pathways from foraging to farming in the region," said Phillip Piper of the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology.

"In southern Vietnam, there are numerous archaeological sites of the Neolithic period that are relatively close together, and that demonstrate considerable variation in material culture, methods of settlement construction and subsistence, Piper said.

"This suggests that communities that established settlements along the various tributaries and on the coast during this period rapidly developed their own social, cultural and economic trajectories," he said.