Phnom Penh - New research dated burial jars and coffins found in Cambodia's remote Cardamom Mountains to around the 15th to 17th centuries, experts said on Thursday.
Researchers used bone fragments, tooth enamel and wood from log coffins placed on rock ledges in the dense forests of western Cambodia to radiocarbon-date the funeral sites to between 1395 and 1650.
The study shed light on the history of Cambodia's highland people, who, research suggested, were culturally a “world apart” from their lowland contemporaries.
“Funeral practices in the Angkor kingdom and its successors involved cremation rather than anything remotely like those found at sites we are studying,” said Nancy Beavan of the University of Otago in New Zealand.
“To date, the bulk of research that makes up what is known about cultural history of the Khmer regions has focused on the lowlands,” she said.
Copper rings and glass beads were consistently found at the hillside sites, the largest of which contained an estimated 54 burial jars.
The 10 known sites are thought to house secondary burials, where the bodies of adults and children were left to decompose before the bones were placed inside ceramic pots and coffins.
“There are similar burial rituals elsewhere in mainland and island South-East Asia, but they have never been recorded in Cambodian cultural history,” Beavan said. - Sapa-dpa