Cambodia is famed for its magnificent jungle-clad temples but little is  known of the rise of the state that created these architectural masterpieces. Recently the construction of a road in Banteay Meanchey Province in Northwestern Cambodia revealed the remains of a Pre-Angkorian settlement. Villagers discovered rich burials orientated with the head to the west. Unfortunately this discovery sparked an episode of looting which led to the near destruction of the site. While the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has made valiant efforts to discourage looting it is a difficult task. Gaping holes spot the landscape with piles of human bone and broken pottery, discarded as valueless, in the spoil heaps. The looters sell their wares to middlemen who then sell them across the border in Thailand.

Villagers also reported that one American has made two trips from Thailand to buy looted antiquities. Crushing poverty is the motivation for the
villagers to loot the site but only greed motivates the buyers.
 
 

In the quest to understand the rise of the state the site may be one of the most important in Cambodia. The material found during illicit excavation
includes bronze and iron spearheads, swords, bangles, bells, earrings, finger and toe rings, projectile points, spindle whorls, glass, carnelian
and agate beads and complete pots. Some of the dead are reported to have been wearing bronze helmets. The wealth of these burials is staggering and is comparable, if not more impressive than, that discovered at Noen U-Loke in Northeast Thailand by Charles Higham and Rachanie Thosarat. The apparent
proliferation of military paraphernalia at a site so much closer to the later Angkorian capital is of great interest. This may indicate increased competition over resources which may have driven the development of strongly hierarchical societies.

In an effort to salvage some scientific information from the looted site the Faculty of Archaeology of the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh
will hold its annual field school in Banteay Meanchey. The field school is supported by the Japan Fund in Trust and UNESCO. Graduate students from the
University of Otago, New Zealand, will join the Cambodian students in the salvage operation.

Dr. Dougald O'Reilly