Earthenware Ceramic Technologies of Angkor Borei, Cambodia 109 UDAYA, Journal of Khmer Studies No. 14, 2019 EARTHENWARE CERAMIC TECHNOLOGIES OF ANGKOR BOREI, CAMBODIA 1 Miriam T. STARK & Shawn FEHRENBACH University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, PaleoWest Consulting INTRODUCTION The period from 500 BCE – 500 CE witnessed the emergence of urbanism and state formation throughout the region (Carter 2015; Stark and Allen 1998). Increasingly complex trade networks connected island archipelagoes and peninsular regions to the upper reaches of major river systems into what is now Laos and central Myanmar through rivers and artifcial canals (e.g., Bourdonneau 2003; Calo et al. 2015; Sanderson et al. 2003). Early urban forms emerged by the end of this period, with residents organized into socially stratifed systems that scholars frequently equate with states (Stark 2006a; Stark and Bong 2001). Organizational changes accompanied the shift from prehistoric to protohistoric time periods across most of mainland Southeast Asia, as localized technological traditions emerged (e.g., Eyre 2011) and populations aggregated into large administrative complexes (Evans et al. 2016; Lorillard 2014; Stark 2006a). Growing evidence also exists, however, for biological and material continuity through time in the Lower Mekong basin and neighboring riverine systems to the west (e.g., Heng 2016: Figure 2 & 6; Lertcharnwit 2014; Matsumura et al. 2011; Murphy 2016; Murphy and Stark 2016; Reinecke 2012; Rispoli et al. 2013). The Mekong and its tributaries increasingly served as communication routes that connected discrete regional traditions during the frst millennium CE (Bourdonneau 1 This paper is an outgrowth of Shawn Fehrenbach’s (2009) unpublished Master’s thesis in the Department of An- thropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (Fehrenbach 2009). S. Jane Allen, James Bayman and Heng Piphal offered insights on the study. Our sincere thanks go to Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, the Royal Uni- versity of Fine Arts, and the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project at the University of Hawai’i for making the Angkor Borei ceramics available for analysis. Compositional analyses reported in this paper were undertaken on an internship at the University of Missouri Research Reactor Archaeometry Lab, supported in part by their NSF Grant #BCS- 0504015 and with thanks to Michael Glascock and Jeff Ferguson. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 19 th IPPA Congress in Hanoi in December 2009 (Fehrenbach) and at the 5 th Annual COSTIKS in Siem Reap in De- cember 2014 (Stark). We thank an anonymous reviewer of this manuscript, and take full responsibility for its contents.