Pre-history in Cambodia is really important to tell about the past of Cambodia (Kamboja / Kambuja / Kanbawza). Cambodia locates in the mainland Southeast Asia. The ancient people lived here thousand years before the historical record known to the world. To study about the pre-history in Cambodia, they never forget one place as the oldest prehistoric site of Cambodia in the northwest region of this country, Battambang Province. Battambang has been known to the world for its prehistoric site, La Ang Spean, in the cave of Teak Trang Mountain telling the secret how ancient people movement in this area and habitating here since the Stone Age. The cave of La Ang Spean prehistoric site locates on the west part of Teak Trang Mountain in the Kilo 38 Village, Treng Commune, Rattanak Mondol District, Battambang province and 40 km westward from Battambang City . Both international and national tourists can travel to this prehistoric site through National Road 10 (Today National Road 57) from Battambang City to Pailin Province. The name of La Ang Spean came from the view of the stone above the cave that look like bridge in the cave. It should be noted that Teak Trang Mountain was formed at about 300 million B.C. during the earth plain movements.
In 1964, Mr. Roland Mourer and his wife, Cécile came to Cambodia for this well-known prehistoric site and did a research over land area of 15 square metre in the mountain cave of this prehistoric site. This cave is 42 metre long, 20 metre wide and 20 metre high. They dug the soil near the west wall of the cave around 1.5 metre deep and found that there are 9 layers of soil. In the 9th layer of soil, they saw a lot of stone equipments and broken part of pottery products such as jar, porcelain, etc. They set the age of soil as to the stone age from 8500 to 6800 B.C.
Recently, archaeologists from France with Cambodian archaeologists from Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts did a research on the land area of 70 square metres and found many equipments and broken jar of local prehistoric people used at La Ang Spean Prehistoric Site. They found 5 ancient dead body: one is female and others are male which at least from 3300 to 3370 B.C. Along with the buried ancient dead body, there are porcelain, ax made of limestone, some with arrows, some without arrows, stone bracelets, stone beads and animal bones, especially turtle bones (Yosothor Organization, 2020). From this research, both French and Cambodian archaeologists believed that these ancient people at La Ang Spean Pre-Historical Site can use various equipments and pottery products in different designs as you can find below photos (Yosothor Organization, 2020).
Based on the previous research, people living in the cave of La Ang Spean Prehistoric Site can be traced back into three stages:
- From 26000 to 71000 years before now ( Stone Age) in the layer of soil from 3 metre to 5 metre of the cave: there was the note for human activity with animal bones and stone equipments. People lived based on picking wild fruits and shooting animals and little fish.
- From 5100 to 11000 years before now (Ending Stone Age) in the layer of soil from 30 centimetre to 1.4 metre (black soil layer from 30 centimetre to 40 centimetre): prehistoric people use stones from nearby river to use as stone equipments. There are lots of bone fragments, as well as snail shells and shells. When the bones of these animals are analyzed, it is found that most of them are large species such as rhinos, giraffes, rattlesnakes, tigers and deer. In addition, there are wild boars, deers, hedgehogs, ferrets, cobra, pythons, monitor lizard, birds and little fish bones which were left behind as their daily food. People lived in this period picking wild fruits and shooting animals and little fish while stayed in the cave.
- From 3300 to 3370 years before now (Bronze Age): during this period, due to the warming temperature, people moving outside the cave to live on the farm doing agriculture and fishery. They just used the cave at La Ang Spean prehistoric site of Teak Trang Mountain as the buried place for their relatives' dead bodies which found 5 ancient dead bodies. It is believed that people moving southwards during this period to other location with the support of the warming temperature.
