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Summary: www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 323 20 FEBRUARY 2009 999
NEWS OF THE WEEK
Archaeologists have long puzzled over the
collapse of the mighty medieval Khmer
kingdom in Southeast Asia best known for
its resplendent capital, Angkor. New find-
ings suggest that a decades-long drought at
about the time the kingdom began fading
away in the 14th century may have been a
major culprit.
Evidenceforamegadroughtcomesfrom
centuries-old conifers that survived the
Angkor era. At a conference* earlier this
week in Dalat, Vietnam, tree-ring scientist
Brendan Buckley of Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Pal-
isades, NewYork, described how the annual
growth rings of conifers inVietnam reveal a
sharp weakening of Asia's summer mon-
soon from 1362 to 1392 C.E. and again
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