The Hoabinhian from Laang Spean Cave in its stratigraphic, chronological, typo-technological and environmental context (Cambodia, Battambang province)
Abstract
Cambodian Palaeolithic prehistory is largely obscured by the prestigious tradition of major classical (pre)Angkorian studies and is still little known. Renewed excavations in Laang Spean Cave by the French-Cambodian prehistoric mission since 2009 now provide new stratigraphic, chronocultural and archaeozoological results concerning the Hoabinhian techno-complex. At Laang Spean Cave this cultural milestone has been dated between 11,000 and 5000 years BP and is situated between a Neolithic level with burials and a Palaeolithic level with chert flakes and cores. It completes the median part of the stratigraphy of the site with an infilling currently over 5 m thick, although the bedrock has not, as of yet, been reached. The characterization of the Laang Spean Hoabinhian occupation and its environmental context allows for i) the establishment of a first chronostratigraphic estimate, ii) regional comparisons in Southeast Asia and iii) renewed discussions concerning the technical behaviour and means of subsistence of the last hunter–gatherers at the very end of the Late Pleistocene.