page_title: Dong Son culture
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Dong Son culture / Origins
caption_attribution_description: bronze figurine, Dong Son culture, Thailand
context_page_description: The Dong Son culture or the Lạc Việt culture was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centred at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the first century AD. It was the last great culture of Văn Lang and continued well into the period of the Âu Lạc state. Its influence spread to other parts of Southeast Asia, including Maritime Southeast Asia, from about 1000 BC to 1 BC.
  The Dong Son people, also known as Lạc or Lạc Việt, were skilled at cultivating rice, keeping water buffalos and pigs, fishing and sailing in long dugout canoes. They also were skilled bronze casters, which is evidenced by the Dong Son drum found widely throughout northern Vietnam and South China.
  To the south of the Dong Son culture was the Sa Huỳnh culture of the proto-Chams.
context_section_description: The origins of Dong Son culture may be traced back to ancient bronze castings. However, according to archaeological discoveries in Isan, Thailand in the 1970s, the casting of bronze began in Southeast Asia first. The Dong Son bronze industry has a local origin, equivalent in timing to the Gò Mun culture, 700-500 BC.  This includes bronze axes, spearheads and knives.  
  The bronze drums were used for war, "the chief summons the warriors of the tribe by beating the drum", when mourning, and during feasts.  "The scenes cast onto the drums would inform us that the Dong Son leaders had access to bronze founders of remarkable skill." Lost-wax casting was based on Chinese founders, but the scenes are local, including drummers and other musicians, warriors, rice processing, birds, deer, war vessels, and geometric designs.
  The bronze drums were made in significant proportions in northern Vietnam and parts of Yunnan. The Dong Son bronze drums exhibit "remarkable skill".  The Cổ Loa drum weighs 72 kilograms (159 lb) and would have required the smelting of between 1 and 7 tonnes (1.1 and 7.7 tons) of copper ore.
caption: Bronze figurine, Dong Son culture, from what is now Thailand
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