Angkor and the Khmer Civilization by Michael D. Coe

This phenomenon, which occurred in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Mesoamerica, is strongly associated with climate variability and extensive landscape transformation. Large, low-density settlements of the tropical world disintegrated during the first and second millennia of the CE. I conclude with suggestions for future research directions to continue building an archaeology of residential spaces and communities in Southeast Asia. In this review, I consider how archaeologists have addressed these themes using examples from a diverse set of geographic locations and time periods in mainland and island Southeast Asia. As a result, archaeologists of Southeast Asia have addressed many topics of relevance to those who use a household archaeology approach, including the identification and description of houses and household activities the domestic economy domestic ritual diversity and variability both within houses as related to questions of identity, specifically gender and age, and between houses, especially as related to status and identification of supra-household communities. Nevertheless, archaeologists in Southeast Asia have undertaken excavations within habitation areas and residential spaces, identifying domestic debris, the partial remains of house structures, and activity areas. Despite the ethnographic importance of the Southeast Asian house and household, an explicitly Southeast Asian “household archaeology” is still in its infancy.

Angkor and the Khmer Civilization by Michael D. Coe