Historical Ecology of the Mekong in a set of 5 diachronic maps

The set of maps presented here are an attempt to illustrate the complex dynamics that sit at the heart of the Mekong River Basin, and the long-term interactions that humans have had with this watery world. On the one hand, it aims to capture the changing landscape that follows the regional monsoonal climate, which affects both navigation and water-related resources. It also aims to bring forth the long-term interactions between people and their environment, presenting a diachronic view of late prehistoric, protohistoric, historic, and contemporary settlement sites following geographically-oriented landscape approaches postulated by the Maritime Cultural Landscape (Westerdahl, 1992) and Historical Ecology (Crumley, 1994).