Samrong Sen
Samrong Sên · Somrong Sên
Samrong Sen Neolithic 1500–500 BCE → Bronze 500 BCE–200 CE → early Chenla·Samrong Sen (Mekong Neolithic rice, Austroasiatic Khmer ancestor?)·🇰🇭 Kampong Chhnang Province, Kompong Leng District, Samrong Sen hill slope on Tonle Sap River western floodplain near Kampong Chhnang (60 km north of Phnom Penh), Cambodia
About
About Samrong Sen
Oldest Khmer Neolithic mound and cemetery (c.1500 BCE–200 BCE, Samrong Sen culture) on the Tonle Sap west bank near Kampong Chhnang — 7 ha hill slope with 3 m shell-rich layers excavated 1901–02 by Louis Mansuy (Fene's colleague), yielding the famous 'Samrong Sen flexed burials' (700 burials with flexed legs, shell bracelets, cord-marked pottery, nephrite beads) and bronze (500 BCE). Samrong Sen defines the 'Samrong Sen Neolithic' (1500–500 BCE) as southern extension of Ban Chiang rice tradition via Mekong, contemporaneous with Khok Phanom Di south and An Son near Saigon. Demonstrates Mekong plain lake-rice cultural diffusion before Chenla.
Why it mattersFirst Khmer Neolithic (1901) — anchors Mekong rice diffusion 1500 BCE from Ban Chiang/Red River to Chenla Angkor, southernmost cord-ware.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Was Samrong Sen rice 1500 BCE domesticated Khok-style or imported?
Theories
- 01Mekong Neolithic as SEA rice corridor (Higham model)
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.1500 BCE Neolithic hillock hamlet on Tonle Sap plain edge
- Period
- Samrong Sen Neolithic 1500–500 BCE → Bronze 500 BCE–200 CE → early Chenla
- Culture
- Samrong Sen (Mekong Neolithic rice, Austroasiatic Khmer ancestor?)
- Builders
- Tonle Sap Neolithic rice fisher-foragers
- Purpose
- Lakeside hillock hamlet and shell cemetery bridging Red River–Ban Chiang rice to Chenla
- Abandoned
- c.200 BCE (proto-Chenla transition)
- Rediscovered
- 1901 Mansuy (French EFEO) excavation — first Khmer Neolithic
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
c.1500–800 BCE
Neolithic flexed burials with shell bangles and rice-tempered ware
c.500 BCE
Bronze small socketed axes in same pottery tradition
1901
Mansuy excavates defining Samrong Sen culture — first Khmer rice village
On the ground
Structures & features
12.1200° N · 104.7200° E · 22 m · 2 mapped features
Flexed Burial Midden Core
cemetery700 flexed burials with shell bangles and cord rice ware in shell lenses
12.1205° N · 104.7205° EBronze Late Horizon
cemeteryLate bronze socketed axes in extended burials on upper hill slope
12.1195° N · 104.7195° E