Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BGAR (Beyond the Greater Angkor Region)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-01-01 do 2022-12-31
Understanding urbanization processes, regional networks, and the ability of systems to change while maintaining the same functions, i.e. their resilience, is critical for the continued existence and growth of communities today in urban and rural contexts alike. Archaeology has a rich history of investigating human-environment coupled systems in urban settings and is well-suited to identifying characteristics of resilient systems over centuries. Detailed analysis of urbanism and human-environment interactions have been conducted on the giant low-density complex of the Greater Angkor Region; however, this has not been investigated in the context of regional networks of the medieval Khmer Empire (9th – 14th centuries C.E.). This project, “Beyond the Greater Angkor Region (BGAR),” addresses these issues in regional contexts, including the six medieval urban centers that were recently (2015) identified by the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative and the agro-urban zones stretching among them.
This research agenda is within a dynamic and multidisciplinary network of scholars interested in human-environment interactions in mainland Southeast Asia. In this project, we used various methods, including machine learning and network analyses, to address regional agricultural production issues in inter-connected urban contexts.
This research agenda is within a dynamic and multidisciplinary network of scholars interested in human-environment interactions in mainland Southeast Asia. In this project, we used various methods, including machine learning and network analyses, to address regional agricultural production issues in inter-connected urban contexts.
Beyond the Greater Angkor Region (BGAR)” addressed issues of water management and agricultural production in urban and regional contexts through an archaeological case study of cities in the Khmer Empire (9th – 14th centuries C.E.). We are now seeking to understand the resilience of networks of urban centers through existing archives of archaeological data, along with new data acquired with cutting-edge remote sensing instruments.
Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire and emerged as one of the most extensive low-density urban complexes in the preindustrial world.1 Khmer inscriptions indicate that Jayavarman II founded the imperial kingdom in 802 CE after unifying the extended Khmer world within a single socio-political system. After unification, urbanization was rapid and expansive. By the 12th century C.E. the empire covered most of mainland Southeast Asia and continued to flourish until the 13th century C.E. before entering a period of decline. Despite Angkor’s longevity, some scholars, beginning with Groslier (19792), have argued that the collapse of an unsustainable hydraulic network, the extensification of the agro-urban periphery of agricultural communities, changing precipitation patterns, and the emergence of a densely-populated urban core were significant factors in the abandonment of medieval Angkor as the center of the Khmer state. This work is similar to other studies highlighting human-environmental interactions over an extended scale.
Angkor had a large population of agriculturally unproductive people living within the central urban area. Much of the surplus required to provide for them was produced by the network of community-based temples in the peripheral regions of Greater Angkor. Inscriptional evidence suggests that these peripheral temples were integral administrative, economic, and religious centers for communities, regulating most aspects of Khmer life. This included orchestrating and designing local water infrastructure (e.g. moats and reservoirs). Remote sensing projects have identified spatial associations among temples, hydraulic features, and rice fields that have substantiated the relationship between temples and rice production. Archaeological excavations have also revealed stratigraphic coherence between temples and water management features with hydraulic infrastructures, such as laterite (stone-lined) channels leading from the temple moats to adjacent ricefields. Over a thousand temple communities have been identified and mapped in the Greater Angkor Region.
This work has resulted in four peer-reviewed publications and four book chapters. The peer-reviewed publications synthesize and compile all known information about temples in the Greater Angkor Region as well as provide diachronic population estimates for the area; discuss the evolution of agro-urbanism using Angkor as a case study; analyze the agricultural system of medieval Angkor and suggest that there were increasing returns to agricultural intensification at Angkor; and, assess engineering at the nexus of climate and social challenges as related to the “collapse” of Angkor. The book chapters detail Angkor’s local temple communities and suburban settlement patterns; perspectives on the ‘collapse’ of Angkor; the trajectories of urbanism in the Angkorian world; and how deep learning can be used to map archaeological features in lab-based settings. Finally, one paper with the results from the automatic large-scale mapping of Khmer Empire reservoirs in satellite imagery using Deep Learning should be submitted for peer-review publication in early 2023.
Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire and emerged as one of the most extensive low-density urban complexes in the preindustrial world.1 Khmer inscriptions indicate that Jayavarman II founded the imperial kingdom in 802 CE after unifying the extended Khmer world within a single socio-political system. After unification, urbanization was rapid and expansive. By the 12th century C.E. the empire covered most of mainland Southeast Asia and continued to flourish until the 13th century C.E. before entering a period of decline. Despite Angkor’s longevity, some scholars, beginning with Groslier (19792), have argued that the collapse of an unsustainable hydraulic network, the extensification of the agro-urban periphery of agricultural communities, changing precipitation patterns, and the emergence of a densely-populated urban core were significant factors in the abandonment of medieval Angkor as the center of the Khmer state. This work is similar to other studies highlighting human-environmental interactions over an extended scale.
Angkor had a large population of agriculturally unproductive people living within the central urban area. Much of the surplus required to provide for them was produced by the network of community-based temples in the peripheral regions of Greater Angkor. Inscriptional evidence suggests that these peripheral temples were integral administrative, economic, and religious centers for communities, regulating most aspects of Khmer life. This included orchestrating and designing local water infrastructure (e.g. moats and reservoirs). Remote sensing projects have identified spatial associations among temples, hydraulic features, and rice fields that have substantiated the relationship between temples and rice production. Archaeological excavations have also revealed stratigraphic coherence between temples and water management features with hydraulic infrastructures, such as laterite (stone-lined) channels leading from the temple moats to adjacent ricefields. Over a thousand temple communities have been identified and mapped in the Greater Angkor Region.
This work has resulted in four peer-reviewed publications and four book chapters. The peer-reviewed publications synthesize and compile all known information about temples in the Greater Angkor Region as well as provide diachronic population estimates for the area; discuss the evolution of agro-urbanism using Angkor as a case study; analyze the agricultural system of medieval Angkor and suggest that there were increasing returns to agricultural intensification at Angkor; and, assess engineering at the nexus of climate and social challenges as related to the “collapse” of Angkor. The book chapters detail Angkor’s local temple communities and suburban settlement patterns; perspectives on the ‘collapse’ of Angkor; the trajectories of urbanism in the Angkorian world; and how deep learning can be used to map archaeological features in lab-based settings. Finally, one paper with the results from the automatic large-scale mapping of Khmer Empire reservoirs in satellite imagery using Deep Learning should be submitted for peer-review publication in early 2023.
There are many comparisons to be made between contemporary processes of urbanization and the historical trajectory of Angkor and its regional urban network. The rapid extensifying urbanization of Asia today was foreshadowed by Angkor's gigantic former urban complex and its associated urban network. The seven newly revealed urban landscapes lead to many unanswered questions about when they were established and their role in the regional political, economic, and social systems. Regional networks in Southeast Asia are undergoing a rapid trend towards dispersed urbanism, and agricultural development is quickly outpacing the availability of freshwater resources. Potential water-related challenges associated with the rapid urbanization of regional networks include poverty, reduced production, and human casualties resulting from flooding disasters, such as the 2017 monsoon season in Southeast Asia that displaced tens of millions and claimed nearly 2000 lives. Additionally, about 600 million people are currently undernourished in Asia, and this number is only expected to rise with increased demands on water availability and increased population pressure. Historical case studies, like the cities of the Khmer Empire, can demonstrate the long-term consequences of massive low-density urban expansion and the associated urban networks by analyzing their impact, trajectories, and degree of resilience over centuries.