Browsing by Author "Hendrickson, M"

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    A brief history of Angkor’s iron: reconstructing multi-scalar chronologies in the Phnom Dek metallurgical landscape, Cambodia
    (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, 2021-11-17) Hendrickson, M; Hua, Q; Cai, S; Tauxe, L; Leroy, S; Phon, K
    Iron was an essential commodity in the rise of Angkor, the largest and most influential state in mainland Southeast Asia between the 9th to 13th centuries. Multidisciplinary research around Phnom Dek in northern Cambodia revealed an extensive metallurgical landscape spanning over 1300 years of production activity and a dramatic increase in the scale of smelting correlating with the expansion of the Khmer Empire. Extensive AMS radiocarbon dating of in-slag charcoals from across the Phnom Dek region and materials recovered from furnaces and occupation at the site of Tonle Bak are used here to reconstruct the multi-scalar chronologies of production (furnace, mound, site, region) during this important time in Southeast Asian history. By integrating geomagnetic intensity data from furnace bases, we demonstrate that it is possible to identify temporal differences between ‘contemporary’ smelting sites within a single mound. At the scale of the slag mound and site we posit that the terminal use relates to ritual while the regional pattern indicates the Khmer state’s desire to increase production and improve access to iron resources needed for temples, warfare and daily life.
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    First constraint on historical geomagnetic secular variation in Cambodia, Southeast Asia
    (American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2018-12-13) Doctor, RK; Cai, S; Tauxe, L; Hendrickson, M; Hua, Q
    The geomagnetic field is a consequential component of the Earth, most importantly acting as a deflector of harmful solar radiation. Studying variations over the past thousands of years allows reconstructed field models to be used as a tool for archaeological dating, and helping to constrain the structure of the Earth’s interior. In current geomagnetic field models, Southeast Asia has little empirical historic data; therefore, archaeomagnetic data from Cambodia, an area currently devoid of data, can be used to refine the models. The purpose of this study is to examine the viability of using ancient furnaces to determine the secular variation of the geomagnetic field in Cambodia. Our samples are taken from ancient furnaces used for smelting iron, from the Khmer Empire near Tonle Bak, Cambodia. Via radiocarbon techniques, these furnaces have been dated between the 12th to 13th century. Twenty-six oriented samples were collected from three furnaces. These samples can be analyzed using paleomagnetic methods to measure the magnetic remanence vector and reconstruct the ancient magnetic field. Using a step-wise thermal demagnetization method, the direction of the field during the cooling of the furnaces was determined. Based on preliminary results (~20), samples from the furnaces are good recorders of the ancient magnetic field, resulting in excellent demagnetization behavior. Additionally, paleointensity experiments on the same samples will be conducted and should result in scalar values of intensity. Together, this study will give the full vector information of the geomagnetic field around 12th to 13th century in Cambodia, which can be used to recreate the geomagnetic secular variation in this area. © AGU 2018
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    Iron and fire: geoarchaeological history of a Khmer peripheral center during the decline of the Angkorian Empire, Cambodia
    (Elsevier, 2016-04-01) Hall, T; Penny, D; Hendrickson, M; Cooke, C; Hua, Q
    Preah Khan of Kompong Svay (Preah Khan) was a vast peripheral outpost of the Angkorian Khmer Empire, managed with either strong influence from the capital or semi-autonomously between the 11th and 13th centuries AD. It is believed to have held significant economic importance to the Angkorian elite given its assumed trade partnerships with the neighbouring Kuay hill tribes as well as its proximity to Phnom Dek, or “Iron Mountain”, one of Cambodia's richest known sources of iron oxide. However, the dating of a number of iron metallurgy sites found within the complex placed the heaviest period of industrial activity between the 13th and 17th centuries AD — during the decline of the Angkorian period and beyond into Cambodia's Middle Period. In this paper we present a more extensive record of occupation and use of the site, using a series of geoarchaeological and geochemical records, and show that occupation likely occurred in three stages (Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3). We suggest that in Stage 1 Preah Khan was initially established as a politico-religious expression of power in this strategically important region, and during this time maintained a small, non-industrial population. By the mid-late 14th century AD (Stage 2) macrocharcoal levels increase suggesting that Preah Khan's purpose may have shifted as it became increasingly occupied or utilised for iron smelting activity, before it was finally abandoned in Stage 3, approximately half a century before the supposed abandonment of Angkor. An important question raised from this transition is whether the increased activity in the later phase represents a new wave of Khmer occupants or parasitic occupation of an abandoned temple complex by neighbouring forest-based minority groups. These results highlight the benefit of using geoarchaeological approaches in reconstructing the histories of Angkorian settlements and in increasing our understanding of the response of Khmer peripheral cities to the abandonment of the capital. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.
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    The Iron Kuay of Cambodia: tracing the role of peripheral populations in Angkorian to colonial Cambodia via a 1200 year old industrial landscape
    (Elsevier, 2014-07) Pryce, TO; Hendrickson, M; Phon, K; Chan, S; Charlton, MF; Leroy, S; Dillmann, P; Hua, Q
    The Industries of Angkor Project (INDAP) is the first scientific study combining investigation of the chronology, supply network and technology of raw and finished iron within Angkorian (9th to 15th c. AD), Middle Period (15th to 19th c. AD) and Colonial (1863–1953) Cambodia. This paper is concerned with the production technology employed at five iron smelting sites in the northern province of Preah Vihear, three loci within the enclosure walls of the Angkorian Preah Khan complex and two, c. 30 km east, near Phnom Dek or ‘Iron Mountain’. The Phnom Dek area is a historic homeland of the ethnic minority Kuay people, who continued to smelt iron from local mineral sources into the 1940s. With the aim of testing a previously proposed ‘Angkorian Kuay’ hypothesis, that Kuay ancestors were responsible for Angkorian period iron smelting at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay (Preah Khan), the objective of this preliminary study was to establish whether any technological continuity could be detected across a 1200 year old industrial landscape, and thus if any socio-culturally homologous relations could be proposed for the ironmakers respectively responsible. Our preliminary results suggest that the iron smelting remains at Preah Khan date from Angkor's terminal phase and into the subsequent Middle Period, whereas as the two studied production sites near Phnom Dek range from the 9th–11th c. AD and to the 19th/20th c. AD. Preah Khan and Phnom Dek production systems appear to have used different iron ore sources but, in the absence of well-preserved furnace remains, statistical analysis of slag chemistry indicates a technological conservatism spanning more than a millennium. At this stage the ‘Angkorian Kuay’ model can be neither rejected nor sustained but the complexity of Preah Vihear province's settlement and industrial history is becoming increasingly apparent and will only become clearer with further excavation and study of chronologically and geographically intermediate sites. © 2014, Elsevier Ltd.
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    Smelting in the shadow of the iron mountain: Preliminary field investigation of the industrial landscape around Phnom Dek, Cambodia (ninth to twentieth centuries A.D.)
    (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017) Hendrickson, M; Leroy, S; Hua, Q; Kaseka, P; Vuthy, V
    The high-grade mineral ores of the Phnom Dek region in central Cambodia have long been suspected of playing a major role in the rise of Angkor, the largest medieval polity in mainland Southeast Asia. This article presents the first comprehensive study by the Industries of Angkor Project (INDAP) to document the extent of industrial activity in this region and test this important relationship. Using a combination of intensive field survey, surface collection, and archaeometallurgical analysis, we evaluate the temporal and spatial patterning of iron production and the heterogeneity of smelting systems. The identification of at least three different smelting traditions has a significant impact on the current view that twentieth-century Kuay smelting practices extend deep into Cambodia's history, and their relationship with Angkor in particular. More broadly, the survey demonstrates the importance of Phnom Dek as a major production zone on par with more well-known examples in Roman Europe and Africa. © 2017 by the University of Hawai‘i Press
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    Using in-slag charcoal as an indicator of “terminal” iron production within the Angkorian period (10th-13th Centuries AD) center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia.
    (Univversity of Arizona Department of Geosciences, 2013-01-01) Hendrickson, M; Hua, Q; Pryce, TO
    Recent fieldwork by the Industries of Angkor Project (INDAP) has identified the first extensive evidence of iron production within an Angkorian Khmer (9th to 15th centuries AD) center at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay (Preah Khan) in Preah Vihear province, Cambodia. This immense 22-km(2) temple complex appears to be an outpost of Khmer settlement situated in close proximity to Phnom Dek ("Iron Mountain"), the richest known source of iron oxide in Cambodia. Combined with the fact that Preah Khan's temple architecture dates between the late 10th to early 13th centuries, the period that the Khmer greatly expanded their territorial influence, our primary hypothesis is that this complex was established to gain access to and monitor production of iron for the capital of Angkor. The vast number and size of these iron slag concentrations, some up to 5 m in height by 35 m in length, precludes the use of traditional excavation and dating methods. Instead, this paper employs C-14 dating of "in-slag" charcoal from surface slag cakes to produce a spatial chronology of late or "terminal" industrial activities. The results indicate that metallurgy was "last" practiced at various locations within Preah Khan in the mid-13th to late 17th centuries, with 3 distinct clusters between the late 13th and late 15th centuries. Based on this initial survey of surface collections, it appears that iron production at Preah Khan occurred after the final phase of masonry construction. More significantly, this work provides the first robust set of dates for late Angkorian and Middle period industrial activities in Cambodia. © 2013, University of Arizona.