About this Research Topic
Climate change, with its expression in the current mounting climate crisis, is threatening life on Earth as we know it. It is already affecting millions of people, their environments and livelihoods, with extreme weather events: drought and heat in some places; torrential rains and flooding in others. Thus, climate change as a hazard to archaeological heritage is a topic of concern among archaeologists and related professionals. This especially impacts the delicate bioarchaeological heritage at archaeological sites across diverse ecological zones.
Droughts affect the valuable record kept by waterlogged materials, whilst the accelerating thawing of permafrost results in the loss of invaluable archaeological and archaeobiological evidence. The endangered materials include organic plant debris that constitute invaluable and irreplaceable archives for past plant use, management, and roles in diverse – and often sustainable – economies, as well as whole archaeological sites.
As specialists in archaeobotanical heritage, we must prepare to fight this situation by identifying and initiating courses of action, regarding information protection, understanding better how past communities dealt with climate change. Responses to it coming from Traditional Ecological Knowledge of today’s Indigenous and descendant communities in different ecozones are key, as they offer an alternative to westernized systems. Finally, we need to address the logistics of remains preservation.
Beyond archaeobotany, we cannot obviate the devastating consequences for humanity and the planet and how they affect every sphere of life. Our position is that archaeobotany, archaeology and Academia in general must become an active subject, identifying causes, and proposing solutions. We are willing to receive contributions on all topics that relate our field with climate change understanding and fighting, from institutional politics, student awareness, degrowth and specially activism in the broader sense, from individual actions to collective ones that are happening now to try to ensure a place for the past in the future, because there is no Archaeology in a dead planet!
Droughts affect the valuable record kept by waterlogged materials, whilst the accelerating thawing of permafrost results in the loss of invaluable archaeological and archaeobiological evidence. The endangered materials include organic plant debris that constitute invaluable and irreplaceable archives for past plant use, management, and roles in diverse – and often sustainable – economies, as well as whole archaeological sites.
As specialists in archaeobotanical heritage, we must prepare to fight this situation by identifying and initiating courses of action, regarding information protection, understanding better how past communities dealt with climate change. Responses to it coming from Traditional Ecological Knowledge of today’s Indigenous and descendant communities in different ecozones are key, as they offer an alternative to westernized systems. Finally, we need to address the logistics of remains preservation.
Beyond archaeobotany, we cannot obviate the devastating consequences for humanity and the planet and how they affect every sphere of life. Our position is that archaeobotany, archaeology and Academia in general must become an active subject, identifying causes, and proposing solutions. We are willing to receive contributions on all topics that relate our field with climate change understanding and fighting, from institutional politics, student awareness, degrowth and specially activism in the broader sense, from individual actions to collective ones that are happening now to try to ensure a place for the past in the future, because there is no Archaeology in a dead planet!
Keywords: climate change, crisis, extreme weather, archeobotany, humanbioarchaeology
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