This town, 50km east of Udon, was once the hub of the ancient Ban Chiang civilisation and archaeological digs here have uncovered a treasure-trove of artefacts dating as far back as 5600 years.
What is now one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia was discovered quite accidentally in 1966. Stephen Young, an anthropology student from Harvard, tripped while walking through the area and found the rim of a buried pot right under his nose. Looking around he noticed many more and speculated that this might be a burial site – he was right. The first serious excavations took place in 1974–75 and they uncovered over a million pottery pieces as well as 126 human skeletons. Researchers later uncovered the earliest evidence of both farming and the manufacture of metal tools in the region.
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