The 9th -15th century CE Angkorian Empire was home to the world’s largest preindustrial city, and its urban core, located near the modern town of Siem Reap, Cambodia, covered approximately 1000 square kilometers. While Angkorian civilization has been the focus of art historical, architectural, and epigraphic studies, we know little of the daily lives of the people who built, managed, and lived among the temples that are popular tourist attractions today. Multiple field seasons of work by the Greater Angkor Project, in collaboration with the APSARA Authority, have focused on exploring the occupation areas of Angkor in order to address these questions.

The 2015 field season, funded by National Geographic and Dumbarton Oaks, undertook an excavation on an occupation mound within the Angkor Wat enclosure. This research project drew on recent lidar survey data to test three hypotheses: that the mounds within the enclosure were used for occupation, that they were inhabited by non-elites, and that the mounds and dwellings may have served as short-term occupation areas. Dr. Carter wrote a short article about this field season, which you can read here. You can read a publication about our work at Angkor Wat here.