<figcaption>Phon­sa­van Map</figcaption>

Upper Laos – North­east­ern Laos, Houaphan and Xieng Khouang provinces – is one of the most mys­te­ri­ous regions in Indochi­nese Penin­su­la. This is a long-iso­lat­ed land of shin­ing lime­stone ranges, vast forests, and mighty rivers. It is known for the ancient mega­lith­ic civ­i­liza­tion that has left a trea­sure trove of jars, funer­al stones, mono­liths and men­hirs scat­tered across the land, as well as the mys­ter­ies sur­round­ing cer­tain episodes of the Amer­i­can Secret War in Laos.

From 5,000 B.C. and 800 A.D., the region was ruled by an enig­mat­ic Pro­to-Indochi­nese mega­lith­ic civ­i­liza­tion, most like­ly Khmuiques (Aus­troasi­at­ic). Researchers believe that it was at the cen­ter of a vast trade net­work, allow­ing the emer­gence of a flour­ish­ing pro­to­his­toric civ­i­liza­tion that ven­er­at­ed mono­liths, men­hirs, tumu­lus, cairns, sacred stone cir­cles and oth­er arte­facts sim­i­lar to oth­er mega­lith­ic civ­i­liza­tions in Ara­bia, Africa, Europe, and North­ern and South­ern America.

<img alt="Site 2" src="https://www.secretindochina.com/upload-images/programmes/plain-of-jars/Plain-des-Jarres-SITE-2---9--HDR_resized-1585213718.jpg" />
<figcaption>Site <span class="numbers">2</span></figcaption>

An opu­lent city like­ly stood not far from Bang An (Phongsa­van Site N1), a wood­en ephemer­al city where princes and slaves built mono­liths and jars, and tire­less­ly fash­ioned argil, sand­stone, and gran­ite. Today, jars and stone fields can still be found in var­i­ous places on the Tra Linh plateau at the cen­ter of the region and beyond – along the Nam Khan and Nam Ngum Rivers, on high ridges, along ances­tral trade routes, on the sides of Phu Bia moun­tain, the Isarn plateau, and in North­ern India.

There are var­i­ous the­o­ries for how the jars were used, includ­ing as rice stor­age or fer­men­ta­tion tanks. Most like­ly, they served as mono­lith funer­al urns, recep­ta­cles for cre­mat­ed remains, or a means of decom­pos­ing bod­ies. The jars were made of var­i­ous mate­ri­als: sand­stone, lime­stone, schist, gran­ite, and a long-for­got­ten com­pos­ite of crushed stones, sand, clay and hon­ey. They were a range of sizes and weight, vary­ing from 600 kg to six tonnes.

<figcaption>Site <span class="numbers">2</span></figcaption>

Upper Laos can be explored from Viet­nam and Pu Long, Luang Pra­bang or Vien­tiane. The most notable sites are N1‑2 – 3‑16 – 23-25 – 52, the stone fields of Hin­tang (Sankong­phan and Keo­hin­tan), and Lima Sites 85 and 20A.

<img alt="Site 52" src="https://www.secretindochina.com/upload-images/programmes/plain-of-jars/Site-52-resized-1585214416.jpg" />
<figcaption>Site <span class="numbers">52</span></figcaption>