Thursday, January 23rd, 2014 From Funan to Angkokr- Emerging Complexity and Political Economy in Southeast Asia

Description

This talk presents a discussion of the political economy of two different Southeast Asian polities. I begin with a discussion of an early state located in the Mekong Delta region of Cambodia and Vietnam. Chinese visitors in the first few centuries AD called this area the kingdom of Funan, which many scholars believe laid the foundations for the later Angkorian Empire. Interaction with and influence from India and South Asia is believed to have been a major factor for the emergence of this early state. However, the role that inter- and intraregional trade played has long been poorly understood. In this presentation I discuss the results of my dissertation research examining early exchange networks through a study of important trade goods from South Asia: stone and glass beads. These prestige objects were exchanged across mainland Southeast Asia and are primarily found in burial contexts. Through compositional and stylistic analyses of beads from Iron Age (500 BC – AD 500) sites in Cambodia and Thailand, several distinct regional trading networks were identified. I argue that evidence for changing trade networks is related to an increase in trade with India and an expansion of power by elites in the Mekong Delta, contributing to the emergence of the early state of Funan. In the second portion of my talk I present a new research project which focuses on the excavation of a house mound within the Angkor Wat enclosure. This research provides an opportunity to explore the role that households played in the political and ritual economy of the Angkorian Empire.