Andrew Harris

This project examines how Theravada Buddhist communities within the medieval politico-religious centre of Angkor Thom demonstrated resilience and adaptability amid political and environmental change by assessing place-making and urban development during Angkor’s final centuries as the capital of Cambodia (c. 13th -15th centuries CE). Rather than viewing this era through the lens of linear decline, our research investigates how these communities reorganized their social and religious landscapes in response to shifting political and environmental conditions. Central to this investigation is place-making surrounding congregational monastic centres called vihara/preah vihear, known archaeologically as “Buddhist Terraces,” which emerged by the late 13th century and eventually supplanted earlier Hindu and Mahayana Buddhist temples as primary nodes of Angkorian socio-political organization. Building on nearly a decade of fieldwork, the project integrates targeted archaeological excavations, ground-penetrating radar survey, and radiocarbon dating at two important monastic complexes, in contrasting core and peripheral urban contexts, along Angkor Thom’s East Gate Road to enhance known occupational chronologies while documenting patterns of architectural expansion, formal boundary construction, and localized statue production. Together, these findings link later Angkorian religious place-making to broader processes of settlement organization, infrastructure maintenance, and landscape transformation during a period of political and environmental change.