Archaeological findings at an ancient site just outside of Hanoi are challenging classic narratives of Vietnamese history.
UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, November 21, 2016 — As a child living in Vietnam at the end of the war, anthropological archaeologist Nam C. Kim witnessed firsthand the way warfare and politics can shape our interpretation of the past. A professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kim visited UCLA on November 3 to present on his findings from the Co Loa archaeological site in Vietnam at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. His talk examined the way the politics of the past, specifically, relations between China and Vietnam, have shaped the Vietnamese people’s current understanding of their history.
Vietnam’s contradictory past
The Co Loa settlement where Kim has conducted on-site research is located approximately 10 miles north of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. Hanoi and Co Loa are in the Red River Delta, an area that has deep cultural meaning for the people of Vietnam. Referring to it as a “cradle of civilization,” Kim explained that the Vietnamese consider it the birthplace of their culture. This level of cultural importance is responsible for the heightened interest in archaeology in the region, said Kim, as Vietnam seeks to better understand and reaffirm its history.
The traditional history of Vietnam is largely focused on semi-legendary accounts of great kings. At the same time, it is also defined by ongoing resistance to cultural infiltration and domination by its neighbor to the north, China. Chinese, or Han, textual accounts of the early Vietnamese people are in sharp contrast to Vietnamese tales of legendary kings, painting a picture of a southern culture of savage people in need of civilizing.
A big challenge, Kim explained, is that the Vietnamese narratives to which modern archaeologists are comparing their findings have been subject to retelling and reinterpretation over the centuries. “We’re talking about many, many centuries later,” he explained. “And we have to ask ourselves if — when they were recorded — they were subject to the imagination or ideas of the contemporary [people] writing them down.”
Nam C. Kim presents at UCLA. (Photo: Kevin Sprague/ UCLA.)
Archaeology as a fact check
Archaeology in Vietnam was funded and supported by government officials in the 1960s and 1970s. Excavations at Co Loa and others like it were, said Kim, launched in hopes of finding archaeological evidence that supported the traditional narratives of Vietnam’s history and thus legitimated them.
“History and archaeology were complementary,” explained Kim. “Folks were looking at the archaeological record… for direct links to these textual accounts about what early Vietnam looked like.” According to the speaker, nearly every archaeological study conducted during those decades focused on finding physical evidence to support the tales of the legendary kings of Vietnam.
Currently, archaeological records have analyzed five different phases within early Vietnamese history. The first phase has given archaeologists information on life in very early Vietnam, while the well-documented last phase is representative of Vietnam during periods of Han presence. The details of life during the phases in between are largely a mystery. By examining findings from the middle phases, Kim hoped to gain insight into the reality of Vietnam’s history.
Drum found at Co Loa site. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)
Archaeologists at sites like Co Loa often find valuable artifacts from Vietnam’s past, including handcrafted bronze drums from the Dong Son culture, some of the most iconic symbols of the Vietnamese people. What Kim and his team found at Co Loa, however, was congruous with neither legendary kings nor of a savage people. Instead, they found tiles that were very similar to Chinese tiles from the same time period, despite the fact that the time period in question predated Han presence in Vietnam.
The archaeologists also found walls that seemed to have been built over the course of 3 to 59 years by thousands of workers, indicating a multigenerational effort to control resources and reinforce Co Loa’s security. According to Kim, they offer insight into the infrastructure of a complex society and “a complicated identity of early Vietnam as a cultural hub in an era of collision and contestations.”
By presenting challenges to traditional beliefs about Vietnamese history through archaeological evidence, Kim hopes to spark further conversations on how the Vietnamese think about history. “I hope that [this] kind of work … starts to bridge gaps that exist,” Kim concluded, “but also brings in other constituents interested in how the past is interpreted and presented.”
Published: Monday, November 21, 2016
