The Mysterious Plain of Megalithic Jars in Laos

[sofa king]

1. I know what they're for: Deforestation.

What was originally there was a lush jungle or forest thinly draped over a porous boulder field. Clearing it took out the root network that was able to capture and hold rainwater above the rocky, porous ground underneath, so crops could not survive outside of the monsoon season.

So locals hollowed out the rocks that were too big to move, brought other sandstone ones in, probably laid down a flat rock "floor" around the jars, and put dirt over that in an attempt to keep water from seeping into the ground.

The jars would fill with water during the monsoon--perhaps helped by cramming each jar with palm fronds to grab water from outside of the jar's narrow lip. Then it would be covered to keep mosquitoes from breeding and distributed during the dry season to grow some sort of a crop. The need for all that water might suggest rice, but the terrain does not.

That's my guess, cribbed from Jared Diamond and his chapter on the Mayans, who had an identical problem in a different rocky jungle.

Edit: I realize that the article suggests they were burial jars and that human remains were found in them. All that tells me is that these people pissed someone off, who came in, killed 'em all, and fouled their water jars forever by dumping the bodies in them. After that, they surely did become burial jars!