Tham Lod rockshelter (Pang Mapha district, north-western Thailand): Evolution of the lithic assemblages during the late Pleistocene Thanon Chitkament a, 1 , Claire Gaillard b, * , Rasmi Shoocongdej c a Rovira I Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain b CNRS-UMR 7194, Department of Prehistory, National Museum of Natural History, IPH 1 rue Ren e Panhard, 75013, Paris, France c Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University, Wang Tha Phra Campus, 31, Na Phralan Rd, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok,10200, Thailand article info Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: Late Pleistocene Southeast Asia Highland Pang Mapha Hoabinhian Sumatralith Technical evolution abstract Tham Lod (Pang Mapha district, Mae Hong Son Province) is one of the rockshelters in the limestone karst of north-western Thailand. The site was excavated from 2002 to 2006 under the direction of one of us (R.S.) in the context of The Highland Archeological Project. The stratigraphical sequence of the site provided dates ranging from late Pleistocene (35 ka, TL), to late Holocene (3000 BP). Thousands of lithic and faunal remains occur throughout the sequence; ceramics and metal items appear in the upper layer (Holocene). Noteworthy are the few human burials in the late Pleistocene layers. This paper presents the lithic material from area 2, sectors S20W10 and S21W10, unearthed from the stratigraphic layers 3 to 10 (late Pleistocene). Artefacts are mostly made in locally available grey sand- stone, which is overwhelming in all the layers. The lithic assemblage includes a large proportion (2/3) of rock fragments brought to the site and artificially (or thermally?) broken. These are mostly small frag- ments (<100 mm) while the big fragments are rare and even absent in the middle layers. Flakes are well represented in the Pleistocene upper and middle layers. Cores proper (meant to produce flakes) are extremely rare and tools proper (shaped) are less than 10% of the material, half of them being larger than 100 mm. All of them, the large and the small tools are mainly shaped on cobbles and cobble fragments and mostly with unifacial shaping. Typical sumatraliths, the signature of the Hoabinhian technical tra- ditions, are conspicuous in the middle layers 6 to 4; they are associated with partial sumatraliths (not shaped all around), especially in the layers 6. They are much less in the lower layers and seem to be absent in the bottom layer. Conversely, the cobble tools are almost exclusively choppers in the lower layers 10 to 8. The scrapers are the major type among the small tools and they are quite constant in number throughout the stratigraphy. As some of the artefacts are definitely considered as “Hoabinhian”, the detailed technological study of the lithic industry will help in understanding this “techno-cultural” facies and in tracing how the stone artefacts were manufactured, used, maintained and finally discarded by the huntersegatherers. Analysis of the whole sequence in Tham Lod aims at reconstructing the technical evolution in the context of the late Pleistocene climatic changes in this part of Eurasia. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction North-western Thailand includes many limestone hills with karst due to weathering and tectonic structure. Therefore, the region is rich in caves and shelters. Formerly, two main sites, Spirit Cave (Gorman, 1972) and Banyan Valley Cave (Gorman, 1971; Reynolds, 1992) were well documented for their archaeological remains, especially for the Hoabinhian culture, around 12 ka to 3 ka BP. In Mae Hong Son Province, the site of Tham Phaa Chan provided a rich lithic assemblage that was analyzed in detail (White and Gorman, 2004). Recently, in the beginning of the 21st century, intensive work has been conducted along the border between Thailand and Myanmar. These explorations and excavations were undertaken in the frame of two main programs, the Highland * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: sabuyc@yahoo.com (T. Chitkament), gaillacl@mnhn.fr (C. Gaillard), shoocongdej_r@su.edu (R. Shoocongdej). 1 Present address: 47bis rue du Maine, 72200 BAZOUGES-SUR-LOIR. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.10.058 1040-6182/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Quaternary International xxx (2015) 1e11 Please cite this article in press as: Chitkament, T., et al., Tham Lod rockshelter (Pang Mapha district, north-western Thailand): Evolution of the lithic assemblages during the late Pleistocene, Quaternary International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.10.058