| Abstract: |
In a cooperative program between the Royal University of Fine Arts and the Ministry of Culture in Phnom Penh, and the University of Hawaii, recent research since 1995 in eastern Cambodia suggests that earthwork sites of the so-called "Mimotian" culture pertain to distinctive Neolithic Southeast Asian settlements. As will be shown here, the homogenous nature of settlement pattern, architectural features composing the sites, and material culture yielded from the sites may point to a unique "Neolithic" adaptation within the lower terrace region of Cambodia (and extending into western Vietnam). As will also be shown, the circular earthwork settlements of Cambodia are very different from the moated sites previously documented in northeast Thailand. What remains to be firmly established regarding the Cambodian earthworks is a precise chronology regarding site occupational sequences and, second, an understanding of the multifarious and complex material record of the sites.
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