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- Convenors:
-
Farid Sellami
(INRAP)
Boun Suy Tan (National Authority APSARA)
- Location:
- Salle du conseil 4th floor MAE
- Start time:
- 9 July, 2015 at
Time zone: Europe/Paris
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Recent studies of Cambodian sites have shown angkorian land use influence on soil and landscape evolution. We try here to promote proposals, dealing with holocene soil data from south eastern Asia, to discuss human activities and the inferred changes on Holocene soil and landscape evolution.
Long Abstract:
In south eastern Asia, increasing archeological investigations are seldom combined with geoarchaeological studies which can put human occupation on their stratigraphical and environmental frameworks. Recent advances in geoarchaeology provide new data which may help to identify and refine our understanding of human occupation environment, domestic and agricultural activities throughout the Angkor metropolitan area.
Soil studies have clearly shown that angkorian occupations had induced deep changes on pedological soil functioning. Temple's construction and water flows adjusting give rise to important soil movements and new landscape forms such as dikes. Soils were often deeply disturbed and even transformed by agronomic process and anthropics rejects which induce formation of cumulic brown organic soil. Remote sensing and mapping soil description revealed the extent and association of settlements with ancient fields, confirming the territorial dimension of the urban expansion of Angkor and its potential fundamental role in its operation and even its decline.
In this panel, we try to promote proposals dealing with soil analysis of natural and anthropic deposits over south eastern Asia. The aim is to discuss environmental and climatic forcing in soil evolution and processing changes of the Holocene soil induced by human activities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Yohan Chabot (UMR 8591 LGP-CNRS) Yann Le Drezen (University of Paris1 Pantheon-Sorbonne ) M. Si I Made Geria Nicole Limondin-Lozouet (CNRS)
Paper short abstract:
Our current study of Kota Cina site shows important environmental changes during the last 1000 years resulting from natural dynamics and humans activities. We propose to discuss the issue of regional landscape evolution during the Holocene in relation with Sumatran historic archaeological settlements.
Paper long abstract:
In Indonesia, palaeoenvironmental studies associated with archaeological settlements are still scarce. However geoarchaeological studies can help to understand the stratigraphical and environmental frameworks of human occupations. The study undertaken at the site of Kota Cina is a pioneer work that aims to highlight environmental implications on development, and later on, abandonment and preservation of the site.
The first archaeological interpretations allow identifying Kota Cina as a commercial harbour on Malacca Strait, active between the XIth-XIVth centuries. Nowadays the site is located at 7 km inland. The stratigraphic study and archaeological evidence imply a marked evolution of the environment. Boat wrecks and wooden piles were discovered in a sandy unit at the base of the sequence. This deposit is overlain by a clayey unit rich in organic remains. This last contains well-preserved wooden artefacts dated by AMS between the XIIth-XIIIth centuries. This formation, incised by paleochannels, is characteristic of a swampy mangrove environment. Finally, a silty layer rich in organic and archaeological remains constitutes the upper part of the stratigraphy. This last sedimentary filling is related with anthropogenic activities.
Preliminary results show that Kota Cina occupations have evolved in a changing landscape, from a marine environment at the beginning of the Xth century, to a swampy mangrove area between the XIIth-XIVth centuries. Kota Cina is now located at the back of the mangrove area. This important environmental change resulted from a regional gradual silting. To which extent natural or anthropogenic factors are responsible of these transformations is a matter of debate.
Farid Sellami (INRAP) Pierre Bâty (INRAP)
Paper short abstract:
This paper shows soils and environments changes under humans activities resulting from angkorian land settlement expansion
Paper long abstract:
Recent studies have demonstrated how the temples of Angkor formed the core of a vast and dispersed network of extensive infrastructures and settlement system where the population was engaged in urban and rural activities. Remote sensing and mapping works revealed the extent and association of settlements with ancient fields, confirming the territorial dimension of the urban expansion of Angkor and its potential fundamental role in its operation and its decline. Poorly documented in epigraphy, producing almost no perennial archaeological objects, the ancient land use of Angkor looked until recently like an unattainable objective. However, recent advances in geoarchaeology provide new data which may help to identify and refine our understanding of domestic and agricultural activities throughout the Angkor metropolitan area.
This paper deals with geoarchaeological results gathered on fossilised archaeological sites around the Siem Reap airport in the framework of the rescue excavations conducted during last five years. During these excavations, several long stratigraphical sequences were observed and sampled for specific soil analysis such as micromorphology. They show that soils development and distribution were occurred according to domestic and agricultural activities which impact on pedological development.
Most of the stratigraphical sequences studied have also shown that anthropised soils were usually layered by fine aeolian sandy sediments suggesting a significant degradation of soil surface and may be of the vegetal cover during Angkor Empire. It was eventually associated with the profound environmental changes in order to fit with angkorian land settlement expansion.
Frédéric Prodeo Pierre Bâty (INRAP) Farid Sellami (INRAP)
Paper short abstract:
The data obtained by Inrap survey around Siem Reap Airport provide accurate informations about soil microtopography and corresponding sediment movements. They were gathered and exploited using GIS, which helps 3d modelling of each stratigraphic unit, that can be considered according to human impact.
Paper long abstract:
The archaeological evaluations made by Inrap around the Siem Reap International Airport totaled fifty hectares, who were surveyed since 2004, through stratigraphic exploration trenches, up to about 5% of this surface. On zones 1 to 6, or 23.4 acres southeast of the tracks, they have recorded 286 representative logs of the soil cover.
On an average thickness of 2 m, sedimentary sequences were stored in a georeferenced database (GIS), lending to extrapolation of a topographic modeling, for each identified stratigraphic unit.
The data obtained provide accurate informations about soil microtopography and corresponding sediment movements. These reliefs give an inventory of soils according to their degree of human impact and their deposition context.
This approach calls for standardization of soil descriptions collected by different international teams involved in this area.