Viewing the Future in the Past

Description

Viewing the Future in the Past is a collection of essays that represents a wide range of authors, loci, and subjects that together demonstrate the value and necessity of looking at environmental problems as a long-term process that involves humans as a causal factor. Editors H. Thomas Foster, II, Lisa M. Paciulli, and David J. Goldstein argue that it is increasingly apparent to environmental and earth sciences experts that humans have had a profound effect on the physical, climatological, and biological earth. Consequently, they suggest that understanding any aspect of the earth within the last ten thousand years means understanding the density and activities of Homo sapiens.

The essays reveal the ways in which archaeologists and anthropologists have devised methodological and theoretical tools and applied them to pre-Columbian societies in the New World and ancient sites in the Middle East. Some of the authors demonstrate how these tools can be useful in examining modern societies. The contributors provide evidence that past and present ecosystems, economies, and landscapes must be understood through the study of human activity over millennia and across the globe.

Contributors:
Sebastian F. Braun
R. Kyle Bocinsky
Emily K. Brock
H. Thomas Foster II
David J. Goldstein
Sharon J. Hall
Carrie A. Hritz
Timothy A. Kohler
Melissa R. Kruse-Peeples
Christopher T. Morehart
Dana K. Nakase
Lisa M. Paciulli
Jennifer R. Pournelle
Sarah L. Quick
Katherine A. Spielmann
Amanda B. Tickner
Jolene E. Trujillo
Thomas G. Whitley

Sujets

• Sciences de la nature
• Sciences de l'environnement
• Life Sciences
• Sciences et techniques
• Anson Mills
• Biology
• Archaeological phase
• Cultigen
• Reuse
• ADAPT
• Historical geography
• Historical ecology
• Foraging
• Prospect theory
• General officer
• Winnowing
• Reforestation
• Primary sector of the economy
• Sumer
• Ecology
• Permaculture
• George Perkins Marsh
• General
• Agriculture
• Old South
• 454 Life Sciences
• Reboisement
• Science
• Domestication
• Cuisine

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 05 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611175875
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

VIEWING THE FUTURE IN THE PAST
VIEWING THE FUTURE IN THE PAST

Historical Ecology Applications to Environmental Issues
EDITED BY
H. Thomas Foster II, Lisa M. Paciulli, and David J. Goldstein

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
2016 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN 978-1-61117-586-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-61117-587-5 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Preface
How Archaeology and the Historical Sciences Can Save the World
H. THOMAS FOSTER II, DAVID J. GOLDSTEIN, AND LISA M. PACIULLI
Diversity, Standardization, and the State: The Politics of Maize Agriculture in Postclassic Central Mexico
CHRISTOPHER T. MOREHART
From Historical Ecology to Prehistoric Economy: Modeling the Caloric Landscapes of the Past
THOMAS G. WHITLEY
Feeding History: Deltaic Resilience, Inherited Practice, and Millennial-Scale Sustainability in an Urbanized Landscape
CARRIE A. HRITZ AND JENNIFER R. POURNELLE
Complexity, Rigidity, and Resilience in the Ancient Puebloan Southwest
R. KYLE BOCINSKY AND TIMOTHY A. KOHLER
Soil Texture and Agricultural Resilience in the Prehistoric Southwest: Farming on Perry Mesa, Arizona
KATHERINE A. SPIELMANN, SHARON J. HALL, MELISSA R. KRUSE-PEEPLES, DANA K. NAKASE, AND JOLENE E. TRUJILLO
Repairing the Damage: Reforestation and the Origins of the Modern Industrial Tree Farm
EMILY K. BROCK
Sustainability, Resilience, and Dependency: The Great Plains Model
SEBASTIAN F. BRAUN
Southern Slow Foods: Ecological Awareness through Gourmet Heritage
SARAH L. QUICK
A Good Place: Aesthetic Pleasure and Landscape Resilience
AMANDA B. TICKNER
Variable Biodiversity from Managed Ecosystems in Long-Term Chronosequences from the Southeastern United States
H. THOMAS FOSTER II
Contributors
Index
PREFACE
The essays in this book represent a wide range of authors, loci, and subjects. Yet they collectively demonstrate the value and necessity of looking at environmental problems as a long-term process that involves humans as a causal factor. It is increasingly apparent to environmental and earth scientists that humans have had a profound effect on the physical, climatological, and biological earth. Consequently, understanding any aspect of the earth within the past 10,000 years means understanding the density and activity of Homo sapiens. A study of the Holocene requires including humans as a causal factor. This realization has led many scientists to rename the Holocene the Anthropocene. Collectively, the authors provide evidence that ecosystems, economies, and landscapes must be understood through the study of historical data sets that span generations.
The authors in this book go beyond documenting human impacts on the environment. Many of them demonstrate how studying the past can inform our present and future. We argue for an applied archaeology where knowledge of the past is used to solve modern problems. Since current problems are the result of historical trajectories, human interactions, demographics, climate trends, and more, we must understand the past to solve today s problems. Archaeology and historical sciences offer advantages over some other sciences because archaeologists and historical ecologists can study the long-term effects of processes in the past. They can study the beginning and the end of a process because it occurred in the past. Such long-term, generational data sets are very expensive to collect for present times.
Many contributors to this collection first met at a conference, Field to Table, organized by David Goldstein and sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. The conference was envisioned by David Goldstein as a way to bring together diverse specialists who were researching issues dealing with subsistence and historical ecology.
Charles Cobb had the vision to build a visiting scholars conference at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. Thanks are owed also to Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina; to Carole Crumley for her comments; and to the University of Tulsa for its grant of a research fellowship to Foster to help with the editing and writing of the manuscript. Lisa Paciulli worked magic on the manuscript getting it into a form that was publishable. We all owe her tremendous gratitude.
Thomas Foster
H. Thomas Foster II, David J. Goldstein, and Lisa M. Paciulli
How Archaeology and the Historical Sciences Can Save the World
S tarting around 100,000 years ago, a relatively young and new species of primates began expanding into new environments and increasingly using new technology. That species, Homo sapiens, dramatically increased in population, in geographic range, and in the effect that it had on its local environment over the past 10,000 to 20,000 years. A study of the environment, particularly during the Holocene, has to include a thorough study of humans because humans have had such an effect on all levels of ecosystems. Despite evidence that humans may have altered entire ecosystems and caused mass extinctions (Miller et al. 2005), scientists are just beginning to understand long-term human-environmental interaction in the past (Kennett and Winterhalder 2006; Newsom and Ruggiero 1998; Fritz 2000; Hammett 2000; Douglas et al. 2004; Heckenberger et al. 2003; Peres et al. 2003; Shaw 2003; Burchard 1998; Clark and Royall 1996; Foster and Zebryk 1993; Delcourt et al. 1986; Delcourt and Delcourt 1997, Delcourt 1987; Foster et al. 2004; Rue et al. 2002; Rue 1987). Nevertheless, understanding human effects on the environment is one of the most important challenges facing governments and policymakers today.
Kathy Willis and John Birks recently argued that many ecological processes occur over a long time period (Willis and Birks 2006: 1265) and that a thorough understanding of biodiversity requires an understanding of ecosystems over equally long time periods. Environmental conservationists studying invasive species, fire, climate variability, and natural fluctuations must include longterm data and humans as a causal variable. Because humans historically have had a mosaic and localized effect, we need detailed knowledge of human demographics and migration history and an understanding of human behavior. Some historical ecology researchers such as Carole Crumley, William Bal e, and William Roseberry provide long-term perspectives that are necessary for understanding human-environmental interactions and ecosystem changes (Wolf 1982; Crumley 1994; Bal e 1994, 1998; Roseberry 1989). Forest ecology also has shown that modern forests have to be understood as a product of their past. Forest environments reflect migration of vegetation and climate change (Petit et al. 2008). We argue that archaeology and historical anthropology can provide longterm and anthropogenic perspectives that are important for conservation and environmental-management policies (Petit et al. 2008; Willis and Birks 2006).
Restoration and management of anthropogenic effects on the environment require understanding not only where humans lived but also what actions they took and for how long and how those actions interacted with the environment. Integrated studies of humans and ecosystems reveal complex patterns that take long time periods to develop and that may transform multiple ecosystem levels or regions. Those past coupled relationships have legacy effects on the present and on the future (Liu et al. 2007; Redman and Kinzig 2003; Jackson and Hobbs 2009).
Anthropogenic effects on global climate and local environments are among the largest challenges facing humans today. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity notes that understanding the effects of forest fires as either natural phenomena or as anthropogenic events is important for global environmental management, economic development, and the elucidation of climatic change (Anderson 1994; Burchard 1998; Kammen et al. 1994; Robock and Graf 1994; Schule 2001). Thus, it is imperative that current policymakers and environmental managers understand the mechanisms and processes of anthropogenic effects on the environment over long time periods.
Interactions between humans and their environments have become so widespread and profound that Holocene ecology is anthropogenic ecology. In other words, long-term anthropological data must be included in studies of biodiversity, landscape change, water, climate change, and so on. Therefore, in the remaining sections of this essay, we show how historical ecology and archaeological data are being used to generate an anthropologically informed understanding of modern ecosystems. We discuss how historical forestry data and archaeology are useful for creating chronosequences of human effects on the environment. We also demonstrate how such data can be combined with data of varying scales for modern environmental management using landscape metrics of change and for forest management in Madagascar.
CHRONOSEQUENCES OF BIODIVERSITY FROM WITNESS TREES
Since Holocene ecosystems represent long-term phenomena intermingled with human interactions, historical and archaeological data are central to the understanding of the current, as well as the future, state of our planet. Historical data from maps combined with archaeological data can be used to create chronosequences of the effects of human activities on various landscapes. Because of the systematic nature of archaeological data and the volume of research that is conducted by federally mandated cultural resource management projects, we can create statistically significant samples of chronosequences over multiple physiographic regions. Here we