Dongson is the name of a place in Annam, Vietnam, where excavated graves contained bronze drums with distinctive patterns and daggers. The patterns were bands, spirals, triangles and rectangles. They show mythical men, trees of life, horses, buffaloes, elephants and birds. The Dongson people travelled south from Yunnan and Inner Mongolia, where the same type of ornamentation is found.

The dates for Dongson style are pretty elastic: probably being from 500 BC – 100 AD, but possibly 800 BC – 400 AD or even 1000 BC – 500 AD.