Browsing by Author "Pottier, C"

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    Use of AMS 14C dating to explore issues of occupation and demise at the medieval city of Angkor, Cambodia
    (Elsevier, 2007-03-05) Penny, D; Hua, Q; Pottier, C; Fletcher, R; Barbetti, M
    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.
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    Vegetation and land-use at Angkor, Cambodia: a dated pollen sequence from the Bakong temple moat
    (Cambridge University Press, 2006-09) Penny, D; Pottier, C; Fletcher, R; Barbetti, M; Fink, D; Hua, Q
    Investigating the use of land during the medieval period at the celebrated ceremonial area of Angkor, the authors took a soil column over 2.5m deep from the inner moat of the Bakong temple. The dated pollen sequence showed that the temple moat was dug in the eighth century AD and that the agriculture of the immediate area subsequently flourished. In the tenth century AD agriculture declined and the moat became choked with water-plants. It was at this time, according to historical documents, that a new centre at Phnom Bakeng was founded by Yasovarman I. © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006