Historical Ecology of the Mekong in a set of 5 diachronic maps

The set of maps presented here are an attempt to illustrate the complex dynamics that sit at the heart of the Mekong River Basin, and the long-term interactions that humans have had with this watery world. On the one hand, it aims to capture the changing landscape that follows the regional monsoonal climate, which affects both navigation and water-related resources. It also aims to bring forth the long-term interactions between people and their environment, presenting a diachronic view of late prehistoric, protohistoric, historic, and contemporary settlement sites following geographically-oriented landscape approaches postulated by the Maritime Cultural Landscape (Westerdahl, 1992) and Historical Ecology (Crumley, 1994). The data was originally compiled by Walker Vadillo for her study on river navigation during the Angkor era (see Walker Vadillo, 2016), a work that was made possible by the generosity of the Centre for Khmer Studies (CKS) through their Senior Fellowship program, the ENITAS grant from Chulalongkorn University, and various grants received from the University of Oxford (Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology, St. Cross College, and the School of Archaeology). The maps deposited here were funded by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies through the Core Research Fellowship program.