ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the role of Indian iconography in the establishment of Angkor's fluvial cultural landscape by leading a contextualised study of boats. It discusses riverine watercraft as the functional objects that allowed the people of Angkor to colonise the aquatic space for its resources. By studying the boats of Angkor as part of fluvial material culture embedded in the human-environment interaction debate it is possible to begin to understand the role of boats in Angkor's fluvial cultural landscape. The chapter focuses on the dialectic process that takes place between boats and people, and aims to discern how the former is redefined and used throughout its lifetime through the study of its cultural biography. The way the wood is processed is also very revealing; the wood is given form with chiselling tools, and the fire used for opening the walls of the dugout is fuelled with the debris of the hollowing-out process.
