Living with the Mekong: Archaeological Perspectives and Alternative Futures

Fri, April 1, 2022 11:00 AM at 303 International Center

Southern Cambodia contains a rich yet poorly understood record of early historic period occupation, between ca. 200 B.C. and A.D. 500. Chinese travelers to this region in the third and sixth centuries A.D. described walled and moated cities that housed rulers, elites, and artisans of fine goods such as precious metals,jewelry, and other crafts. Archaeological work at contemporary sites in Vietnam suggests that this area was athriving economic center in the trade routes that linked India to China by way of mainland Southeast Asia.

In most areas of the world, the transition to history is associated with the appearance of writing. Indigenous writing system first appeared in the early seventh century A.D. in southern Cambodia. Yet foreign accounts suggest that the Mekong Delta housed some of the earliest states in mainland Southeast Asia many centuries before this time. In Cambodia, we know these polities (or states or mandalas) solely through documentary evidence. The Lower Mekong Archaeological Project is the first archaeological project to examine the establishment, growth, and decline of early historic period settlements in Cambodia's Mekong Delta. Work has concentrated in and around the archaeological site of Angkor Borei and it associated Phnom Da temples.

Professor Mirian Stark joined the University of Hawai’i-Manoa in August 1995 as aSoutheast Asian archaeologist. She holds a B.A. (1984) from the University of Michigan,M.A. (1987) and PhD (1993) degrees from the University of Arizona. Her archaeologicaland ethnographic field experience involves field-based research in several locations ofNorth America (first the Midwest, the sub-Arctic, and the American Southwest), the Near East (Israel and Turkey), and in Southeast Asia (Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia).In 1996 she began co-directing the [Lower Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP) insouthern Cambodia, and have continued work in this region over the last 12 years.