[4] Archaeological sites reflecting the material culture of Óc Eo are spread throughout southern Vietnam, but are most heavily concentrated in the area of the Mekong Delta to the south and west of Ho Chi Minh City.

Aerial photography in 1958 revealed that a distributary of the Mekong entered the Gulf of Thailand during the Funan period in the vicinity of Ta Keo, which was then on the shore but since then become separated from the sea by some distance as a result of siltation.

Among the coins found at Óc Eo by Malleret were eight made of silver bearing the image of the hamsa or Vietnamese crested argus, apparently minted in Funan.

[12] In July 2023, a stone slab that is roughly the size and shape of an anvil was discovered at Óc Eo, marking the earliest known example of spice processing in Southeast Asia.

The Vietnamese archaeologist and historian Hà Văn Tấn has written that at the present stage of knowledge, it was impossible to demonstrate the existence of a Funan culture, widely spread from the Mekong Delta through the Chao Praya delta to Burma, with Óc Eo as the typical representative: the presence of similar artefacts such as jewelry and seals from sites in those areas was simply the result of trade and exchange, while each of the sites bore the signs of their own separate cultural development.

[14] Hà Văn Tấn argued that, from the late neolithic or early metal age, Óc Eo gradually emerged as an economic and cultural centre of the Mekong Delta and, with an important position on the Southeast Asian sea routes, became a meeting place for craftsmen and traders, which provided adequate conditions for urbanization, receiving foreign influences, notably from India, which in turn stimulated internal development.