Analysis of village accessibility and its impact on land use dynamics in a mountainous province of northern Vietnam

Surveys carried out in mountainous areas of northern Vietnam at research sites selected across a gradient of market integration, revealed strong relationships between the location of the village with respect to the national road network and the nature of its land-use systems, its poverty level and more generally its potential for development. We developed and tested in Bac Kan province a method to give an objective and quantitative definition of accessibility over a large geographic area. Accessibility maps integrated in a provincial GIS showed that despite recent improvements to the road network, some remote areas do not benefit from recent development.     

Reinterpretation of an archaeological pebble culture from the Middle Mekong River valley,Cambodia

In 1963, E. Saurin and J.‐P. Carbonnel discovered the Sre Sbov site on an alluvial terrace of the Mekong River in central Cambodia. Saurin described a lithic typology dating to the Lower/Middle Pleistocene from this site. Although the original lithic assemblage has been lost, this typology has been used continuously as a reference by Southeast Asian prehistorians. In 2007, a Khmer–French team conducted excavations at Sre Sbov that yielded numerous pebbles and cobbles showing apparently convincing handmade removals, as Saurin had previously described. However, an in‐depth study of this assemblage, combined with a geological survey of the area, led to the conclusion that the stones were, in fact, of natural origin, and that for this reason their typology should be disregarded. Using satellite imagery and geological surveys, we explain how such a misinterpretation may have occurred and define a “buffer zone,” corresponding to the maximal extent of the proto‐Mekong River, where fluvially reworked pebbles and cobbles resembling artifacts may be recovered. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.