Use of AMS 14C dating to explore issues of occupation and demise at the medieval city of Angkor, Cambodia

Penny, D; Hua, Q; Pottier, C; Fletcher, R; Barbetti, M

Use of AMS 14C dating to explore issues of occupation and demise at the medieval city of Angkor, Cambodia

Date

2007-03-05

Authors

Publisher

Elsevier

Abstract

Angkorian temples are characterised by one or more encircling moats that are excavated into the alluvial substrate. As a key part of the overall design of the temple, the moats are important symbolically and are presumed to be contemporaneous with the associated temple. They also represent important depositional basins for sediment and other materials and can therefore yield vertical profiles of sediment that has accumulated since the moat was originally excavated. Unconformities in these moat profiles can be dated absolutely using small-sample, high-precision AMS radiocarbon techniques. These unconformities are likely to represent periodic re-excavation or maintenance of the moat and therefore indicate the presence of large, presumably centrally organised workforces. In some instances, presumed anthropogenic unconformities occur centuries after Angkor was supposedly abandoned. In this way, radiocarbon dates themselves are being used as a proxy indicator of cultural activity and are being used to challenge the historiography of Angkor’s famous demise. © 2007, Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords

Carbon 14, Cambodia, Sediments, Isotope dating, Historical aspects, Excavation

Citation

Penny, D., Hua, Q., Pottier, C., Fletcher, R., & Barbetti, M. (2007). Use of AMS 14C dating to explore issues of occupation and demise at the medieval city of Angkor, Cambodia. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 259(1), 388-394. doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2007.02.095