The Angkor civilization was the major regional power in Southeast Asia from the 9-15th centuries CE. However, despite more than a century of archaeological research within Angkor’s capital, little is known about the lives of non-elites. In this presentation, Alison Carter, University of Oregon, discusses recent research on Angkor’s population at two scales. First, she presents recent work by the Greater Angkor Project that has focused on understanding Angkor’s residential occupation through the investigation of habitation mounds within Angkor’s temple enclosures. Then, she presents new collaborative research on the diachronic demographic growth of Greater Angkor, including updated population estimates, which highlight Angkor’s place as one of the world’s largest preindustrial settlements.

About the speaker: Dr. Alison Carter (PhD, University of Wisconsin Madison) is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. She is an anthropological archaeologist who has authored numerous articles on the political economy and evolution of complex societies in Southeast Asia, as well as regional craft technology and specialization, ritual and religion, trade and exchange, and bead studies. Her current project, in which she is PI and co-director is P'teah Cambodia (ProjecT Excavating Ancient Households), a project investigating Pre-Angkorian, Angkorian, and Post-Angkorian residential spaces in Battambang Province.