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209 Linking Downstream to Upstream in Landscape Archaeology Chapter 16 Linking Downstream to Upstream in Landscape Archaeology — Two Southeast Asian Examples Terry Lustig Abstract Water, an essential requirement for life, is a constant feature of landscapes. People will often travel between or settle near water resources; improve access to water resources; and mitigate threats from water. By examining the hydraulic and hydrological record, one can elicit relationships between events at different times in different parts of a catchment; raise new questions about or provide new interpretations of human behavior; or determine the chronology of changes in a landscape. This approach is illustrated with examples from studies in Cambodia and Yunnan. Introduction It is proposed that one can often gain new insights into archaeological questions by studying the water features, such as rivers, lakes, coasts and even groundwater bodies in landscapes. If landscapes are inherently places which have interacted with people (Schama 1995: 7‒14), and water flows affect or are affected by most interactions between people and landscapes, it should follow that water is integral to almost every landscape (Strang 2008a: 123). Water permeates cultures symbolically and can be considered “the most suited element in the environment to convey meaning in every aspect of human life” (Strang 2004: 61). Water features change continually, and these changes can often be reflected in alterations to the terrain. Human actions can also be associated with such geomorphological processes (Gladfelter 1977; Fekri A. Hassan 1978: 197; Brown 1997; Howard and Macklin 1999). The marks that people leave in the landscape might be called “water artifacts”, produced when they settle near or travel between water resources; when they use water; improve access to water; and mitigate threats from water. Moreover, the water, which has also been the particular agent of change, has affected and has been affected by water upstream and downstream over time, which in turn alter other parts of the landscape. The two cases presented below will illustrate how an appreciation of these dynamic properties can facilitate landscape archaeological studies. Case 1: Resource Constraints at Angkor? One of the concerns of the Greater Angkor Project (GAP), based at the University of Sydney, has been to improve understanding of the decline of Angkor, an empire between the 9th century and 15th century (Evans et al. 2007: 14278). Bernard-Philippe Groslier (1979: 187; 2007: 169) places the start of the decline after the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181‒circa 1219) since no further hydraulic structures were built subsequently. This case will exemplify how ideas such as this can be examined and even elaborated in the process of developing a chronology of changes to the water system that supplied the capital. Central Angkor lay on an alluvial plain with an extensive hydraulic network [Fig. 16.1], much of which was fed by water diverted from the Puok River, the main watercourse that meanders across the 209 Connecting Empires hi res combin209 209 8/24/2012 9:47:35 PM 210 Terry Lustig floodplain from northeast to southwest. The diversion was along a channel, known to have been artificial since even today much of it still runs in straight lines. Originally only a portion of the flow of the Puok was diverted, whereas today the whole flow passes down this channel, and it is now called the Siem Reap River. Bam Penh Reach A logical start to this investigation was at the most upstream part of the known water network, at the diversion from the Puok River at Bam Penh Reach [Fig. 16.3] since any changes there would have affected the landscape downstream. Local people reported that there were some unusual outcrops of laterite blocks in a gully at this location. With the vegetation cleared from these blocks, it was apparent that they were part of a spillway [Fig. 16.2]; further excavation showed that this spillway was about 50m wide and 85m long. This find provided a new refutation of the assertion by Willem van Liere (1980: 274) that the Khmer did not know how to build permanent structures in monsoon rivers. Scholars have been unsure whether the work to divert water from the Puok River was undertaken by Yaśovarman I (889–915) and his immediate successors, or by Rājendravarman (944–968) (Groslier 1979: 179–80; Jacques 1990: 296; Pottier 1999: 104). According to Christophe Pottier (pers. comm., 20 Jan. 2004), the similarity between the style of construction of the Bam Penh Reach spillway and other masonry construction under Yaśovarman (see Boisselier...

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