Humans and the Environment: New Archaeological Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century

Drawing on data from across the globe at a variety of temporal and spatial scales, this volume resituates the way in which archaeologists use and apply the concept of the environment. Each chapter critically explores the potential for archaeological data and practice to contribute to modern environmental issues, including problems of climate change and environmental degradation. Overall the volume covers four basic themes: archaeological approaches to the way in which both scientists and locals conceive of the relationship between humans and their environment, applied environmental archaeology, the archaeology of disaster, and new interdisciplinary directions.The volume will be of interest to students and established archaeologists, as well as practitioners from a range of applied disciplines.

Freda Nkirote M'Mbogori is a senior archaeologist based at the National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, with extensive fieldwork experience in the region. Her principal interests lie in the relationship between material culture, economy/environment and identity, and how received concepts played into colonial and present day economic/environmental policies in Eastern Africa.

Acknowledgements

List of figures

List of tables

Contributors

Section 1: Archaeology and Environment

1. Environment in North American and European archaeology, Matthew Davies

2. Environment in Soviet and post-Soviet Archaeology, Olena Symyntna

Section 2: Environment as Artefact

3. Indigeneity of Past Landscape Transformations of the Tropics, William Balee

4. Forced Moves or just Good Moves? Rethinking environmental decision making among East African intensive cultivators, Matthew Davies

5. Is the Environment Good to Eat or Good to Paint? Faunal consumption and avoidance among hunter-gatherer-fishers in the Beagle Channel Region (Tierra del Fuego, South America), Danae Fiore, Angelica Tivoli, Atilio Francisco Zangrando

6. From Ecological Constraints To Cultural Identities: Pre-Columbian attitudes toward food, Alexandre Chevalier

7. Burning the Bush: the development of Australia s Southwest Botanical Province, Fiona Dyason

Section 3: Environmental narratives and applied archaeology

8. Archaeology's Potential to Contribute to Pools of Agronomic Knowledge: a case of applied agro-achaeology in the Bolivian Yungas, Christian Isendahl, Walter Sanchez, Sergio Calla, Marco Irahola, Dagner Salvatierra and Marcelo Ticona

9. Applied Archaeology in the Andes: the contribution of pre-Hispanic agricultural terracing to environmental and rural development strategies, Ann Kendall

10. The role of Agricultural and Environmental History in East African Developmental Discourse, Daryl Stump

11. Past and Present Farming: changes in terms of engagement, Kristin Armstrong Oma

Section 4: Environment, disaster, and memory

12. An Inheritance of Loss: Archaeology's imagination of disaster, Karen Holmberg

13. Nature, Identity, and Disaster: prehistoric lake dwelling in Central Europe.NB, Katherine Leckie

14. Memories and Expectations of Environmental Disaster: some lessons from the Marshall Islands, Peter Rudiak-Gould

15. Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics: lessons from the past for the future, David G. Anderson, Kirk A. Maasch, and Daniel H. Sandweiss

Section 5: New Directions

16. Archaeology and Environmental Anthropology: collaborations in historical and political ecology, James Fairhead

17. The Archaeology of Global Environment Change, Carole L. Crumley

18. Humanised Environments, Chris Gosden

Bibliography

Index