“Dusting Off the Past: Revisiting Forty-Year-Old Plant Specimens from Ban Chiang”
The collaboration between Mahidol University and the Institute of Southeast Asian Archaeology (ISEAA) at the Penn Museum, Philadelphia, USA, began at a conference on early rice in Bangkok in 2017 where Dr. Joyce White met botanist Dr. Sasivimon Swangpol from Department of Plant Science, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University. Over the next 6 years the collaborative program and resources came into focus. All pieces fell into place for 2024 to be the Year of Botany at the Penn Museum. Three Thai experts were brought to Philadelphia to lead the different components, and two Thai students, Thitipa Kuttawas and Kittiyaporn Sukprasong, also from Department of Plant Science, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, participated in an effort over several months to curate over 1,000 plant specimens collected from Ban Chiang, Udon Thani, Thailand. Dr. White, spent years in 1978-81 in the Thai villages, collected plant specimens around Ban Chiang archeological site to serve ethnobotanical and archaeological research. The specimens remained untouch until these activities organized under the MoU between and fundings from the two institutes and partial support from the Royal Thai Embassy, Washington, DC, USA.
For more information on the collaborators, please visit https://iseaarchaeology.org/year-of-botany-whos-who.