Research Summary
Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand — The rural village of Ban Non Wat in Northeast Thailand is one of the most important sites for understanding indigenous societies ancestral to the Empire of Angkor, and each season’s work provides exciting insights to the past. This season, you’ll work with Dr Nigel Chang and his colleagues to help map the wider area of the upper Mun River Valley, developing a GIS basemap, looking for new prehistoric sites and identifying the location of resources such as salt. You’ll survey the catchment and it’s environs to locate new sites for excavation, and interview communities in neighbouring villages. You’ll also process finds from excavations, and may also help document the experimental production of pottery by traditional potters in the region.
You’ll help reveal how Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Age peoples here were affected by their environment, by changing climates, by the development of agriculture, by technological advances, and by contact with those from other lands.
Meet the Scientists
Dr Nigel Chang
James Cook University, Australia
Dr Nigel Chang graduated from Otago University in New Zealand and first worked in Thailand in January 1991 as a student of Professor Charles Higham at the site of Nong Nor – where he also first worked with Earthwatch volunteers. Nigel has taught archaeology at James Cook University (JCU), Queensland, Australia since 2005. He continued to work with Professor Higham’s teams through to 2007, and since then he has led the new version of Origins of Angkor. Other countries where Nigel has developed and worked on archaeological projects include Laos and Australia.
Nigel is a keen photographer. He grew up in a rural environment in the South Island of New Zealand where his childhood was spent working with and riding horses, and engaging in a brief and largely unsuccessful career of rodeo bull riding.