Spirit Cave, Thailand
The Spirit Cave (Thai: ถ้ำผีแมน, tham phi maen) is an archaeological site in Pang Mapha district, Mae Hong Son Province, northwestern Thailand. It was occupied from about 9000 until 5500 BCE by the Hoabinhian.
Location
The site is at an elevation of 650 m on a hillside overlooking a small stream. The Salween River, one of Southeast Asia's longest rivers, is less than 50 km (31 mi) to the north. It was excavated in the mid-1960s by Chester Gorman. Two other significant sites nearby are the Banyan Valley Cave and the Steep Cliff Cave.
New Stone Age
The site dates from the Neolithic or New Stone Age, a period in the development of human technology that is traditionally the last part of the Stone Age. Beginning with the rise of farming, which produced the "Neolithic revolution" and ending when metal tools became widespread in the Copper Age (chalcolithic) or Bronze Age
Plant domestication
Gorman claimed that Spirit Cave included remains of Prunus (almond), Terminalia, Areca (betel), Vicia (broadbean) or Phaseolus, Pisum (pea) or Raphia Lagenaria (bottle gourd), Trapa (Chinese water chestnut), Piper (pepper), Madhuca (butternut), Canarium, Aleurites (candle nut), and Cucumis (a cucumber type) in layers dating to c.9800-8500 BCE. None of the recovered specimens differed from their wild phenotypes. He suggested that these may have been used as foods, condiments, stimulants, for lighting and that the leguminous plants in particular "point to a very early use of domesticated plants". He later wrote that "Whether they are definitely early cultigens remains to be established... What is important, and what we can say definitely, is that the remains indicate the early, quite sophisticated use of particular species which are still culturally important in Southeast Asia".
