The Siam Society Lecture: The Archaeology of Sites and Landscapes: Papers in Honour of Damian Evans

The Archaeology of Sites and Landscapes: Papers in Honour of Damian Evans (13 June 2024)
A Talk by
Christophe Pottier, EFEO Chiang Mai: “Mapping archaeological landscapes: From analogue to digital, and vice versa”
Pare Patcharaporn Ngernkerd, PhD candidate, Silpakorn University: “Settlement patterns and urban form during the 7th-11th centuries CE in Eastern Thailand”
Jean-Baptiste Chevance, Archaeology & Development Foundation - Phnom Kulen: “Debunking the myth of a lost city: Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen”
Mitch Hendrickson, University of Illinois at Chicago: “Above and beyond: Damian Evans’ impact on the archaeology of the Angkorian Khmer Empire”
Martin Polkinghorne, Flinders University: “Mapping early modern Cambodia with lidar: Insights from Damian Evans”
The understanding of Angkor’s rise and fall has been dramatically transformed by the shift in perspective from the temple to the landscape. Since the 1990s, access to a continuous range of remote sensing imagery captured via aerial photography, satellites and lidar has shed light both on the scale and spatial reach of settlements and infrastructure built by the former Khmer Empire. Ground surveys at sites within Angkor and across its provincial territories further revealed how such practices varied in response to historical events and local geography. For nearly a quarter century, the late Damian Evans dedicated his research to documenting the ancient landscapes of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand and was a globally renowned expert in the field of aerial and remote sensing. The presentations in this special symposium offer tribute to his research and legacy by reflecting on the impact of his work at sites before, after and beyond Angkor.
In Honorarium Dr Damian Evans
Dr Evans has worked on the archaeology of Angkor since the late 1990s as part of the Greater Angkor Project, a collaborative, multi-disciplinary research program involving the University of Sydney, the APSARA National Authority and the EFEO. He earned his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2007, and was founding Director of the University’s Research Centre in Siem Reap from 2007 to 2015. His research lies at the intersection of applied geosciences and archaeology, and involves using advanced geospatial technologies to uncover, map and analyse pre-modern archaeological landscapes with a view to understanding long-term socio-ecological dynamics. He was the architect of the 2012 lidar campaign at Angkor, and in 2015 he joined the EFEO to establish and oversee a new program of airborne laser scanning, the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative (CALI), followed by the Archaeoscape.ai project, expanding the scope of research to other parts of Southeast Asia and into the realm of artificial intelligence. Damian Evans died prematurely on 12 September 2023 in Paris, France.
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Disclaimer
The Siam Society is diffusing this lecture for academic, educational and scholarly research purposes only. At no times does The Siam Society take responsibility for any ideas and opinions presented by the lecturer or persons making comments or asking questions.
The Siam Society is deeply grateful to the James H.W. Thompson Foundation for its generous support of the Lecture Series.