Martin Polkinghorne

Portrait of Martin    Polkinghorne

Martin Polkinghorne is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at Flinders University, Australia. Between 2011 and 2014, he led the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery project on pre-modern craft economies in Cambodia. This initiative discovered the first historic bronze foundry known in Southeast Asia and continues to excavate at Angkor. 

Martin is a Chief Investigator of the ARC-funded Greater Angkor Project’s Urbanism after Angkor (14th — 18th century CE): re-defining collapse. In a complementary research program, Martin led the ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) project New Light on Cambodia’s Dark Age: The capitals of Cambodia after Angkor (13501750). Together these projects are conducting the first archaeological investigations of Cambodia’s Early Modern Period capitals on the banks of the Mekong and Tonle Sap arterial rivers. 

Research of Cambodia during a time of quickening international trade reveals critical linkages between the celebrated Angkorian past and the present-day

Martin Polkinghorne is Director of the University of Sydney Angkor Research Facility in Siem Reap, an Honorary Research Fellow of the Asian Studies Program, The University of Sydney, and a Member of the Advisory Board of Friends of Khmer Culture.