The world-leading Australian Canadian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans, who played a critical role in discovering previously undocumented medieval urban areas near Angkor Wat, has died from brain lymphoma.
Close friends confirmed Evans passed away on 12 September in Paris, where he was based working at the École Française d’Extrême-Orient.
Since the 1990s, he has worked extensively in Cambodia, where his cutting-edge research using laser technology to uncover archaeological landscapes in south-east Asia that has transformed the field.
Most notably, the team’s discovery of multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old within greater Angkor upended key assumptions about south-east Asia’s history.
Tributes poured in for Evans from his international colleagues on Wednesday evening.
The University of Sydney’s Prof Roland Fletcher supervised Evans for his honours thesis, where he produced the first comprehensive map of the whole of greater Angkor.
It led to the Greater Angkor Project, led by Fletcher and Evans, and a major collaboration with French archeologist Christophe Pottier to produce a new overall map of the region.
“He was always extremely competent and extremely efficient,” he said. “Very good at working with people and organising.”
Alison Carter, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, met Damian in 2008 when she was in Cambodia doing her dissertation research.
“He immediately invited me to join him on a survey project,” she posted on social media. “He barely knew me, but was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge.
“Damian was also a great writer and editor. I could always count on him to improve a manuscript draft. There were many times I thought I had made a brilliant point in my own work, only to go back and see that Damian said it first, and better.
“Damian was occasionally grumpy, but mostly warm, generous, and funny. We lost him too soon.”
From 2007 to 2015 Evans was the co-director of the University of Sydney’s Overseas Research Centre at Siem Reap-Angkor.
Following its completion, Evans was one of the first researchers to use wide-area airborne laser scanning (Lidar) technology to uncover and analyse greater Angkor’s urban and agricultural networks.
His findings transformed scholars’ understanding of the landscape from past to present day.
In 2014, Evans was awarded a starting grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative and moved his research to France.
The following year, his team carried out the most extensive airborne study ever taken by archaeologists – using a laser radar mounted on a helicopter to scan an area of the jungle in Cambodia comparable in size to greater London.
They discovered a network of ancient Cambodian cities, dating back to prehistory and encompassing the Angkor empire from the 9th to 15th centuries AD.
The research was described by the ERC as “the most ambitious program of archaeological lidar ever achieved in Asia”.
Fletcher said Evans’ energy and commitment working with local Cambodian authorities, including Apsara, which manages Angkor, allowed the project to be carried to completion.
“[Using Lidar] completely transformed our understanding of the middle of Angkor – it was all underneath the trees, buried in the forest, but we could see it for the first time laid bare,” he said.
“I remember colleagues sat in our research facility for hours into the night just watching these fabulous images … the information load was so massive it could only be processed slowly, like watching magic appear.
“It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.”
Andy Brouwer, independent researcher with Hanuman Travel and Hanuman Films, said Evans’ name had been synonymous with “ground-breaking discoveries in understanding more about the extent of the Khmer Empire”.
Pipad Krajaejun, lecturer at Thammasat University, thanked Evans for encouraging south-east Asian archaeologists to explore the world of Lidar technology to evaluate archaeological sites.
“My memories of meeting him in Siem Reap nine years ago [are] still vivid,” he wrote on social media.
“Thank you very much for your great work and for inspiring Southeast Asian archaeologists.”
Prior to his death, Evans had joined the École Française d’Extrême-Orient to oversee a multimillion-dollar project uncovering and mapping early cities using airborne laser scanning, and was undertaking archaeological tours of Laos and Cambodia with Far Horizons.
He has received thousands of citations and appeared in numerous global documentaries and news articles, including the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel’s documentaries on Angkor.
This article was amended on 16 September 2023 to clarify that the École Française d’Extrême-Orient is not operated by Paris’s city government, and to more accurately describe the laser technology that was used.
