The Maldives is an important site on the historic maritime crossroads facilitating the circulation of peoples, goods, and ideas across the Indian Ocean world. This lightly populated archipelago of coral atolls has at various points been home to Buddhist monastic communities, a Muslim sultanate, brief Portuguese occupation as well as in turns a Dutch and British protectorate before the establishment of the modern state in 1968. Today, its low-lying islands are facing an existential threat from climate change. Until recently, relatively little archaeological work had been done in the country, and source material for the early history of these islands has been rather limited.