Affiliation: SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts
Noel Hidalgo Tan is the Senior Specialist in Archaeology at the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts in Bangkok, where he works to promote the archaeology of Southeast Asia by building capacity among regional archaeologists, finding ways to engage the public about archaeological and cultural heritage, and conducting archaeological research. His main research interest is in the rock art of Southeast Asia, where he spent his postgraduate work documenting sites in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. His recent projects include rock art documentation in western Laos and southern Thailand; the protection of regional underwater cultural heritage; archaeology, tourism and the protection of Southeast Asian cultural heritage sites; and developing future capacity in regional archaeology education in Southeast Asia. He is the managing editor of the SPAFA Journal (www.spafajournal.org) and runs an online resource website on Southeast Asian Archaeology (www.SoutheastAsianArchaeology.com)
While a global phenomenon, rock art has been a relatively recent subject of study in Southeast Asia with the number of known sites growing from a handful in the 1960s to over a thousand today. Research accelerated in the last 20 years with better recording and analytical techniques as evidenced by the increased number of papers on Southeast Asian rock art in international conferences and journals since the 2000s. The majority of sites are located from Indonesia and Thailand, where sustained episodes of research have been conducted. New dates from Indonesia challenge long-standing ideas about the ‘origin’ of art while other discoveries shed light on the movements and activities of peoples across this diverse landscape. This lecture presents a survey of rock art across Southeast Asia from the deep past to more modern times and shows how rock art can help us better understand the archaeology of Southeast Asia.
