Louise Shewan

Louise Shewan is the Centenary Fellow (Science) based in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne. Her current archaeology project is the ​‘Plain of Jars Archaeological Project’. The network of some 90 sites across modern Laos has been added to UNESCO World Heritage List since 2019.

Since 2014, Louise Shewan has joined the ​‘From Paddy to Pura: the Origins of Angkor’ Project, a research aimed at examining emerging socio-political complexity in Thailand prior to the rise of the Angkorian state. The project is seeking evidence of the indicators of socio-political transformation including the control of trade and exchange networks, settlement transformation and growth, rising militarism, the attainment of status through the deployment of surpluses, and privileged access to vital resources. Furthermore the project will examine changing population dynamics, specifically, health, mobility and the genetic relationship between the occupants of sites. The project has investigated the moated site of Lovea near Angkor in Cambodia and the site of Prei Khmeng which boasts a later Khmer temple atop a prehistoric cemetery. One site has been selected in Thailand: the oval, moated site of Non Ban Jak in the Mun Valley.