via Applied Ecology News, 15 September 2020: Understanding the complexity of the fall of Angkor in conversation with Miriam Stark, Alison Carter and Dan Penny.
In the context of worries about apocalyptic futures, history and prehistory can play a useful role in framing the ways in which societies deal with major environmental changes. An often mentioned example of such a response is the “collapse” of the society associated with the area of Greater Angkor and the temple of Angkor Wat in the region that is now Cambodia. In the simple telling, climate changed and the society of Greater Angkor couldn’t cope. Collapse followed. But as should be clear in the context of our own current crises (for example, COVID-19) and chronic crises (for example, climate change), the unfolding of major social change is invariably more complex.
