Paul Lévy’s work in the late 1930s at three sites in the Mlu Prei region (in Kompong Thom Province). Most bronze objects ascribed to Samrong Sen lack provenance, but Mansuy’s work recovered stone adzes, bronze objects, and human remains. Lévy’s excavations at Mlu Prei recovered earthenware pottery, bronze tools, and at least one sandstone mold used to cast bronze axes and sickles.

Work by J. Fromaget and Edmond Saurin established the existence of a Paleolithic tradition in the caves and rock shelters of Upper Laos in 1934. Excavations there recovered a middle-Pleistocene animal assemblage and fragments of human bone. That work, together with Saurin’s subsequent work on Pleistocene gravel terraces in northeastern Cambodia and Russian archaeologist Pavel Boriskovsky’s in northern Vietnam, argued for a Paleolithic “pebble tool” culture in Indochina. The evidence for a Cambodian Paleolithic, offered by Saurin in the mid-1960s, is particularly equivocal, but most archaeologists now believe that humans occupied Indochina during the Pleistocene.

The foregoing summary of prehistoric archaeology in Indochina highlights some of the major developments from 1901 to 1970. A huge number of prehistoric archaeological sites were discovered and excavated during this time. Colonial archaeology made significant contributions, and Vietnamese archaeologists have made great strides in our understanding of Indochina’s prehistory. To explain key developments in the prehistoric sequence, colonial archaeologists working throughout Southeast Asia at the time offered a variety of diffusion and migration models, rather than independent invention. It is perhaps intriguing that the adoption of radiocarbon-dating techniques in Indochinese archaeology coincided with the emergence of indigenous archaeologists and the appearance of alternative models that emphasized local development rather than importation from beyond the region.

Historical Archaeology in Indochina: 1901–1970

It might well be said that the history of colonial archaeology in Indochina is the history of Angkorian archaeology. The EFEO’s mission was the documentation and protection of archaeological sites, and several scholars made significant contributions to our knowledge of Cham archaeology, notably Henri Parmentier, J.-Y. Claeys, and Louis Bezacier. Nonetheless, Angkor occupied the heart and soul of EFEO, and much of that organization’s research focused on the Angkorian and pre-Angkorian periods. The abundance of EFEO research cannot be summarized here; sections that follow use selected examples of archaeological work to illustrate general trends.

The collection of monuments that is often glossed as “Angkor” is found immediately north of the Tonle Sap Lake in northwestern Cambodia. The primary goal of work at Angkor was the conservation of the monuments, and the Conservation d’Angkor was created in 1908 after Siam returned Cambodia’s three western provinces. In Phnom Penh, Georges Groslier established the Musée Albert Sarraut in 1920, under the patronage of King Sisowat and (French) Résident Supérior Baudoin. Renamed the National Museum of Cambodia, the institution serves as the repository for Khmer sculptures, inscriptions, and other Cambodian antiquities. The Archaeological Park of Angkor was established in 1926. Henri Marchal and Maurice Glaize, two of Angkor’s conservators between 1916 and 1953, introduced the method called “anastylosis” from Dutch conservators in Java. EFEO conservation involved more than engineering and consolidation: it also involved epigraphic research to assign ages to the monuments, compiling archaeological maps (using ground and aerial techniques) to study the construction sequence in different areas, and archaeological work in connection with restoration.

Archaeological research was also undertaken through EFEO activities that involved the location, mapping, and dating of monuments. One aspect of the organization’s early mission—documentation—involved a general reconnaissance of archaeological sites to supplement earlier reconnaissance by Etienne Aymonier. Lunet de Lajonquière undertook an archaeological survey from 1900 to 1908 that identified the geographic limits of the Khmer Empire. At its peak the empire extended west into central and