Abstract

• The Early Metal Age is the transformational period changing from prehistoric society to historical society. In Myanmar, it is found that there are many evidences that the Early Metal Age society had settled down along the Samon River from c. 1000 BCE to c. 500 CE. The burial sites are only major evidences indicating the existence of Early Metal Age society in that area. Such common objects as pottery vessels found in the graves play an important role to understand the burial customs, social and economic conditions, and cultural distribution of the society in the region through the individual burial assemblages. This study, therefore, aims to explore the role of pottery in burial rites, representing social status of the society and their distributions in the local cultural context. In this study, the data was collected from the excavations of the selected five sites undertaken from the late of 1990s to the late of 2010s, belonging to the Early Metal Age society. The collected data was analyzed by using the quantitative approach. The study of grave pottery in Samon valley reveals that the society might have practiced two or more kinds of burial rites and the differences in the numbers and types of pottery represented different social ranks. Moreover, the dynamics utilizing pottery are concerned with the distance between their locations and the water resources.