Old Krueng Lady in Phoum Svay

Ethnology

The villages in the Memot district, some of them still in remote areas and with the old living style, are targets of ethnographic studies by the Memot Centre for Archaeology (MCA) to document the local heritage, the annual ceremonies, their economy and ecology. Mainly Phoum Satum, a village near the Vietnamese border in the southeast of the district, provided us with an abundance of data. Two booklets have been published already, one on Memot  District and one on the village Satum. They are distributed free of charge.

The traditional villages of Mon-Khmer groups in Rattanakiri still represent the old way of life before the Angkor times. The behaviour and material culture can help us to understand our archaeological records from prehistoric times. MCA staff has therefore conducted fieldwork in several villages of the Krueng ethnic group in Rattanakiri like Phoum Svay.  Their round villages can be very well compared with the 2500 years old circular earthworks in the red soil area of Kampong Cham Province.