Dr Martin Polkinghorne

Martin Polkinghorne is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Archaeology at Flinders University.

Since completing his PhD at The University of Sydney focussing on the people and technology that made the temples of Angkor, Martin has led international archaeological collaborations and fieldwork across mainland and island Southeast Asia.

Supported by Cambodian communities, scholars, and heritage authorities, Martin currently directs the project Resilience and Relocation: Unravelling the end of Angkor. This project aims to address the unresolved issue of Angkor's decline, among the largest pre-industrial cities on Earth, by examining human settlement, landscape management, and resilience to climatic and demographic changes. Building upon twenty-five years of Australian-led research in Cambodia, Martin leads a team investigating Angkor's decline as a distinct socio-cultural transformation, rather than a singular 'collapse.' The research focuses on the Tuol Basan and Srei Santhor regions, key sites where Angkor's elites sought to ensure food security and maintain political authority amidst an agricultural crisis.

In a parallel research program, Martin is Lead Chief Investigator of an international consortium on the ARC Linkage Project, Reuniting orphaned cargoes: Underwater Cultural Heritage of the Maritime Silk Route. This project aims to discover the cultural value of the largest Southeast Asian ceramic collections in Indonesia and Australia with archaeological science and to preserve the underwater cultural heritage of our region for future generations.

The focus of Martin's early career research was the production systems of pre-modern Asia, specifically at Angkor. During his Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship he discovered and excavated the first bronze workshop known in historic Southeast Asia. Additionally, he excavated a centre of sandstone manufacturing to understand how the Angkorian temples and sculptures were made.

Martin held a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, New Light on Cambodia's Dark Age: The capitals of Cambodia after Angkor (1350 - 1750). While the decline of Angkor is among the most significant events in the history of Southeast Asia, there is little known about the settlements that followed. This project conducted archaeology at Cambodia's Early Modern Capitals during a time of great expansion in international trade to retrieve the period from a perceived Dark Age, and revealed critical linkages between the celebrated Angkorian past and the present day. The research responded to an urgent need to conduct excavation of sites at risk of urban and industrial development.

Recognising the emergence of new urban forms after the demise of Angkor challenges the global "Collapse of Civilisation" trope, and was the objective of the Australian Research Council Discovery Project Urbanism after Angkor (14th-18th century CE): re-defining Collapse (Admin Org: The University of Sydney). This project demonstrated that continuity, renewal, variety and adaptation are as apparent in Cambodia's Early Modern Period as loss and failure. As a Chief Investigator, Martin and his collaborators continue long-standing multi-disciplinary investagations at Angkor and are conducting excavations at the Early Modern Period capitals on the banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap arterial rivers.

Supervisory Interests:

• Archaeology of Southeast Asia
• Angkor
• Archaeometry
• Archaeology of the Early Modern Period
• Politcal Economy and Archaeology
• Ceramics
• Underwater Cultural Heritage