Miriam T. Stark (born September 14, 1962) is an American archaeologist whose field experience and emphasis of studies have included locations in North America, the Near East and Southeast Asia.
She is currently a professor of Southeast Asian Archaeology at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, a position she has held since August 1995.
Stark has co-directed the Lower Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP), located in southern Cambodia for the past 12 years.
Stark is a proponent of citizen science, or public support, for fieldwork and research conducted in various locales.
Stark stated that her goal in research conducted in this region was to "heighten public commitment to preserving the Cambodian archaeological heritage".
[4] Beginning in 2010, Miriam T. Stark joined the third phase of research investigating what was deemed the “demise of Angkor”.
In both 2010 and 2012, Stark worked as a GAP III co-investigator in the Greater Angkor region, testing habitations in an attempt to determine residence of Angkorian and Post-Angkorian societies.
Funding for the project was initially provided by the East-West Center, and the Cambodia project was envisioned as the foundation for long-term research programs by faculty from the University of Hawaii’ that involve training graduates of the Royal University of Fine Arts (Phnom Penh) in archaeology, art history, cultural anthropology, and historic preservation.
[9] Stark directs the Luce Asian Archaeology Program (LAAP) at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, which was launched in July 2008.
[10] The LAAP is primarily aimed toward helping archaeological professionals at the junior-level to develop the skills required for grant seeking and international collaborative research.
A total of 12 East and Southeast Asian archaeologists participated in the LAAP from 2009-2012; many have continued their training in postgraduate archaeology programs internationally.
The capital was abandoned around half a millennia ago; the period, rate, and processes of its collapse is largely unknown.
[13] The three objectives of the project are: Miriam Stark has worked with colleagues Peter Grave, Lisa Kealhofer and Ea Darith since 2012 on the Khmer Production and Exchange Project, whose goal is to understand Angkorian political economy through studying the production and distribution of Khmer stoneware ceramics.
Working with colleagues across projects to develop a robust sample of kiln-based and consumption-site stonewares that establishes a set of geochemical signatures for Angkorian kilns (production centers) against which to compare geochemical patterning in geographically discrete areas of the Angkorian state (consumption centers.
Currently identified Angkorian kilns cluster in the hinterland of Angkor, in and around Kulen, in NE Thailand (in provinces just north of the Dangrek Mountains), and in the Phnom Penh region.
Ultimately our work should bring together geochemical, radiometric and vessel form information on Khmer stonewares and their kiln complexes.
[3] From 2013-2016, Stark served on the Cultural Heritage Policy Committee of the Archaeological Institute of America, which primarily based its focus on the area of Southeast Asia.
[3] The committee sought to stop global trafficking of illegal artifacts, particularly of pre-Angkorian and Angkorian art in Cambodia.
She currently serves on eight editorial advisory boards for international journals and was an Archaeological Institute of America national lecturer twice (2013-1014, 2015-2016).
Stark serves as undergraduate advisor in the department of anthropology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and has served in university service roles for the UHM College of Social Sciences Research Council, UHM/CSEAS Foreign Language Area Fellowships Committee, and the UHM Center for Southeast Asian Studies Executive Board.
[15] Miriam Stark advises graduate students as well as Ph.D candidates specializing in Southeast Asia, particularly in research involved in Cambodian and the Philippines.
[16] Dr. Stark has made major contributions to Southeast Asian archaeology, so in order to spread the word, she gives lectures about her team's findings.
She proposed that the Mekong Basin was a watery world, which lead to distinct patterns that made up everyday life there.
The land surrounding the area where the Mekong River meets the sea, flooded for as long as four months per year.
More of Stark's research describes the cosmology of water became part of this region’s culture, thereby elevating the importance of this natural element in Angkor.
Some of the information derived form this source is the possibility of low-density urbanism, the widespread and long term rural settlement configuration with deep historical roots, and the presence of a hamlet based pattern centered on a prasat shrine in Angkor.
Ikehara-Quebral, Rona M.; Stark, Miriam T.; Belcher, William; Vuthy, Voeun; Krigbaum, John; Bentley, R. Alexander; Douglas, Michele Toomay; Pietrusewsky, Michael (2017-10-25).
"Luminescence dating of anthropogenically reset canal sediments from Angkor Borei, Mekong Delta, Cambodia".