History in Their Bones

jhellden:

History in Their Bones: A diachronic, bioarchaeological study of diet, mobility and social organisation from Cambodian skeletal assemblages.

“History in Their Bones” is a multidisciplinary research venture encompassing much of Cambodia, the heartland of Mainland SE Asia, to explore the major social and cultural transformations of the past four millennia. This research would not be possible without support from the Australian Research Council.

Health, human mobility and social differentiation are fundamental to the three core archaeological issues of Mainland SE Asia - the nature of early agrarian rice growing communities, the impact of ‘Indianisation’ on the formation of the state, and the development and demise of empires.

Cambodia is especially well suited to investigate these core issues, because of its geographic location at the cross-roads of extensive cross-cultural interaction and the subsequent socio-political changes during the rise and decline of SE Asia’s most powerful state centred on Angkor.