“An Archaeology of Early Modern Transition in Southeast Asia: Social Transformation in Angkor (13th-17th century)”

Dr. Piphal Heng

Post-Doctoral Scholar, UCLA Program for Early Modern Southeast Asia (PEMSEA) and Cotsen Institute of Archaeology

ABSTRACT: Southeast Asia underwent a series of significant transformations during the Early Modern transition (13th-17th century CE). These included an intensified maritime trade network that later brought European colonialism to its shores, social and political transformations associated with religious change (Theravada Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity), and a southward shift of political centers. In Cambodia, these transformations included the adoption of Theravada Buddhism and the political collapse of Angkor (9th-15th century CE), the largest premodern state in Southeast Asia. How did these polity-scale changes affect local communities in Angkor? This talk examines this transition by looking at recent archaeological evidence from both urban and rural communities in Angkor.

Sponsored by the Harvard Asian Archaeology Seminar and the Harvard Asia Center.