Dr. Damian Evans, an Australian archaeologist, is the architect of the Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative (Cali) and a research fellow at Siem Reap’s École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO).
In 2012 and 2015 The Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative scanned the jungles of Cambodia, finding new and groundbreaking evidence of medieval cities that once stood there.
The ERC, European Reseach Council funded the 2015 scan project based on the work Evans did in 2012 which unearthed the network of medieval temple-cities. At that time, a city was found beneath Mount Kulen, proving what archeologists has been suspecting for some time.
The much larger scan conducted in 2015 showed the immense scale of the city beneath Mt. Kulen including features such as elaborate water systems. In June, the Guardian reported that these findings could “upend key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history”. Evans says these discoveries even “call into question the whole notion of an Angkorian collapse.”
The research from these scans by Dr Damian Evans have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The team at Lidar News is very interested in continuing to follow the incredible work that the Cambodian Archeological Initiative is doing. We will share their findings here and in more detail at the Lidar News website.
