Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Organisers: Prof. Prishanta Gunawardhana, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, prishanta@kln.ac.lk
Dr Keir Strickland, La Trobe University, Australia, k.strickland@latrobe.edu.au
Archaeological studies of urbanism (its emergences, transformations, and failures) have historically focussed on the Mediterranean and the Middle East, where states and cities often developed along major river systems, and where archaeological urban forms and systems conform more neatly to conventional ideas of ‘the city’. In the tropical world, on the other hand, debates persist about whether settlements were truly ‘urban’ in character, and there remains a debate about whether tropical environments – often viewed by Western science as ‘marginal’ and ‘inhospitable’ – sustained densely urban populations over the long term.
However, recent research within tropical environments has underscored the diversity of trajectories of urbanism across the tropical world, as well as highlighting the role of water management systems in attenuating hydroclimatic instability and building societal resilience to climatic change. Consequently, this session aims to explore the emergence, transformation, and failure of urbanism within tropical environments, with a particular focus upon emergence, adaptation and transformation.
By examining a range of case studies from across the tropical world, this session will investigate the forms and trajectories of both tropical urban societies and their urban landscapes, focusing on issues of water management systems (social and technological), hydroclimatic variability, urban resilience, and research approaches.
We particularly encourage contributions led by scholars from the tropics, and welcome papers that adopt interdisciplinary or comparative approaches to better understand tropical urbanism.
Papers:
Large Villages or a City in Santarém, Lower Amazon?
Denise Maria Cavalcante Gomes, Museu Nacional, Dept of Anthropology, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Recent archaeological research in Santarém (AD 1000-1600), Lower Amazon, Brazil, evidenced a regional society of 23.000km2, with large Indigenous villages strategically located in the confluence of the Amazon and Tapajós Rivers and surrounded by smaller ones, demonstrating the existence of a complex society with a regional hierarchy of settlements, but without political centralisation. Fieldwork in the present-day city of Santarém uncovered a pattern of settlement formed by two large linear villages almost continuous—Aldeia (120 ha) and Porto (89 ha)—separated by a seasonal lake. Both sites are habitational with anthropogenic dark earths (ADE), while Aldeia appears to have been a ceremonial centre with features for depositing shamanic artefacts that functioned as a place of pilgrimage. The chronology confirms the contemporaneity of these sites, suggesting a long-term occupation of a dense population in ancient Amazonia. The goal of this presentation is to discuss this case-study comparatively, considering the debate on the emergence of ancient urbanism in tropical environments in more nuanced terms.
Beyond Angkor’s Urban ‘Collapse’: Agrarian Resilience and Strategic Relocation
Martin Polkinghorne, Archaeology, Flinders University, Australia
Leng Vitou, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Royal Government of Cambodia
Phon Kaseka, Royal Academy of Cambodia
Nhim Sotheavin, Sophia University
Vito Hernandez, Archaeology, Flinders University, Australia
Mariko Shimoda, Waseda University
Simon Hoad, Archaeology, Flinders University, Australia
Suy Pov, Independent researcher
Understanding the resilience and persistence of the Angkorian world during the so-called ‘collapse’ of Angkor, the largest low-density pre-industrial city on Earth, remains one of global archaeology’s ‘grand challenges.’ While Angkor has been the primary focus of research, understanding its decline requires examining the first post-Angkorian capital. The Angkorian state never failed; instead, it moved sideways from Angkor to Tuol Basan/Srei Santhor.
While there have been several arguments proposed for Angkorian ‘collapse’: foreign invasion; resource depletion, religious change, and environment—a still-prevalent assumption is that Angkor’s elites departed the city in pursuit of new mercantile opportunities. Preliminary results from nascent archaeological investigations challenge this narrative. Evidence of trade proxies is starkly absent during the pivotal 14th–15th centuries, indicating that Cambodia had not transitioned from an agrarian economy to mercantilism.
A new research program proposes that the ‘collapse’ of Angkor was, in fact, a context-specific long-term socio-cultural phenomenon and a geographical shift of agrarian capital accumulation to Tuol Basan/Srei Santhor, which possessed a sustainable rice agricultural economy. The versatility, not rigidity, of Angkorian culture enabled the elite and their supporting populace to secure food, an economic base, and political authority beyond Angkor.
Potential for Magnetic Susceptibility to Support Modelling of Ancient Urbanisation at Koh Ker, Cambodia
Chris Carleton and Patrick Roberts, Dept of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
This project aims to explore the potential of novel terrestrial coring techniques to add temporality to urban archaeological survey data. Specifically, our goal is to develop a field protocol for using low-impact coring methods to identify the initial settlement phases of different parts of ancient cities, with particular applications to the tropics. To achieve this, it is essential to demonstrate that human influence can be detected in soil profiles through proxies alone, without requiring direct archaeological or artifactual evidence. We tested the potential of Magnetic Susceptibility (MagSus) as a proxy of settlement by applying it to trenches excavated at the ancient Angkorian capital of Koh Ker in Cambodia. Correlating the depth of cultural material with MagSus readings and sedimentological observations revealed that changes in MagSus anomalies consistently coincide with the lowest (earliest) material cultural evidence of habitation in all eight trenches. We highlight the potential of this method for more effective assessment of spatial and temporal resilience of urban occupation, and its relationship to factors such as climate change and conflict, in the tropics.
The Dimbulagala Archaeological Complex and the Indigenous People in the Context of Ancient Sri Lankan Urbanisation
Harendralal Namalgamuwa, Dept of Archaeology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Kier Strickland, Dept of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Australia
Prishanta Gunawardhana, Dept of Archaeology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Paul Penzo-Kajewski, Dept of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Australia
Umanga Roshani Rammungoda, Dept of Archaeology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Jayani Fernando, Central Cultural Fund, Sri Lanka
Early urban communities in Sri Lanka developed in Anuradhapura, Magama, Jaffna, and Matota around the middle of the first millennium BCE, due to intricate relationships between the centre and periphery areas and external influences. Using historical documents and archaeological data, this study critically analyses the urbanisation of the Dimbulagala region and evaluates the contribution of the native Vedda (Yaksha) populations. According to recent archaeological studies, the outskirts of Dimbulagala, like Sorivila and Welikanda, have seen a gradual urban change. This claim is supported by the discovery of prehistoric burial sites and inscriptions from the first to second centuries BCE in the area. Monastic centres in the region developed under the patronage of royals and the elite class according to inscriptions. This changing urban landscape was largely shaped by the indigenous communities of Dalukana, Millana, Yakkure, and Sorivila, where Veddas have inhabited monastic caves up to the recent past. This study adds to the larger conversation on ancient Sri Lankan urban development by highlighting the important role played by the native Yaksha or Vedda communities in the urbanisation of Dimbulagala.
The Equilibrium, Growth, and Disintegration of the Urban Landscape of Ancient Sri Lanka
Prishanta Gunawardhana, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Keir Strickland, La Trobe University, Australia
Harendralal Namalgamuwa, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Umanga Roshani, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Paul Penzo-Kajewski, La Trobe University, Australia
Rebekkah Kurpiel, La Trobe University, Australia
Bradley Young, La Trobe University, Australia
Ancient urbanism appeared in Sri Lanka around the first millennium BCE, with Indian Ocean trade creating the urban characteristics of the first city, Anuradhapura. The country’s socioeconomic and religious framework persisted throughout the urban landscapes of Anuradhapura, Sigiriya, and Polonnaruwa until the eleventh century CE. The emergence of this social structure provides insight into the nature of ancient city planning strategy and the head of state, the king, who hegemonised the city Centre as the polar magnet. It has also been revealed that there is a link between hydraulic agricultural society, international trade, and urbanism. The water heritage, irrigation technologies, and the Indian Ocean collectively played major roles in shaping the city landscape, helping to maintain the urban equilibrium state. The Citadel, which comprised not only the principal city but also the royal palace, assembly hall, and pleasure garden, as well as the administrative core, which might involve Buddhist monasteries, the suburban tank system, and the hinterlands. The success of these internal widespread hydraulic systems of irrigation network and external seawater of the Indian Ocean trade collapsed as a result of invasions, war, and disputes among the Kings and elites, which directly influenced the breakdown of the country’s Centre-hinterland mechanism.
Continuity, Change, and Collapse: The Urban Landscape of Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka
Keir Strickland, La Trobe University, Australia
Prishanta Gunawardhana, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Bradley Young, La Trobe University, Australia
Harendralal Namalgamuwa, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Paul Penzo-Kajewski, La Trobe University, Australia
Suranga Gunawardhana, Central Cultural Fund, Sri Lanka
Rebekah Kurpiel, La Trobe University, Australia
Gamini Adikari, Postgraduate Institute of Archaeological Research, Sri Lanka
The medieval collapse of Polonnaruwa marked the end of the complex urban societies in Sri Lanka’s arid north, and the end of a distinctive and successful form of hydraulic low-density urban settlement that started in the late 1st millennium BCE and continued well into the 13th century CE. However, while archaeological research has mapped out the emergence, development, and eventual collapse of Anuradhapura—Polonnaruwa remains comparatively poorly understood. Moreover, recent research at Anuradhapura has suggested the very economic system that enabled these kingdoms to flourish within a marginal environment, may have facilitated their collapse. This paper presents preliminary findings from initial fieldwork at Polonnaruwa as part of an ARC funded collaborative project between La Trobe University and the University of Kelaniya.
Utilising geophysical survey, drone-mounted LiDAR, auger coring and targeted archaeological excavations within the urban core, in synthesis with historical and epigraphic records, this paper presents the interim results of the Polonnaruwa Urban Landscape project which aims to understand the urban transition and transformation that occurs in Sri Lanka following the collapse and abandonment of Anuradhapura.
New Evidence for Late First-millennium AD Stilt-house Settlements in Eastern Amazon, Maranhão, Brazil
Alexandre Guida Navarro, Laboratory of Archaeology at Federal University of Maranhão, Brazil
Archaeological evidence for stilt-house settlements, or pile dwellings, has been recorded in diverse wet environments around the world. The first-millennium AD stilt-house villages in the Brazilian state of Maranhão, in Eastern Amazon, however, are poorly known. Difficulties in conducting archaeological investigations in seasonally flooded areas have restricted our ability to understand the societies that lived in these unique settlements. The results of recent fieldwork using non-invasive techniques to map, date and characterise these sites point towards a number of similarities and differences in their spatial organisation, material culture and social structure. In this presentation I will focus on various mapping techniques, using new technologies such as GPR and side scan sonar. I will characterise the ceramic material and show evidence of spheres of political-social interaction with the lower Amazon and the Caribbean.