Session: #406

Content:

It has become clear that the way our modern society lives is no longer sustainable, environmentally and socially. The production of material culture, just like with food, can have huge human and environmental costs (e.g. inequality of living conditions, pollution, biodiversity loss). There is growing interest in the role that ancient/traditional crafts and the materials that they use can play in human and environmental health and in how we can preserve them in changing environments. Traditional and ancient crafts are used as poverty relief strategies in many regions of the world but face enormous challenges stemming from climate change and political and social unrest within the regions in which they are still widely practiced. They are also increasingly important in the economies of the industrialised world, for example as a hobby and small scale business. Although Archaeology is incredibly well placed to provide important temporal perspectives on material culture, the impact of ancient/traditional crafts on people and the environment and their adaptations to past and current climate shifts are still little discussed by scholars. Our session aims to initiate a new multidisciplinary and novel dialogue on the challenges and potential solutions that the study of ancient crafts/crafters can provide to 1. inform decision-making in material culture production in the future; 2. reduce the impact human industries have on the environment, people and climate; 3. adapt to changes that are coming in our modern world. We are proposing the creation of a ‘multi-scalar’ perspective, from the biomolecular point of view (e.g. improving the visibility of organic materials such as fibers/dyes), through to landscape archaeology, as crafting activities shape places through. We thus welcome papers to explore the role of the study of ancient and traditional crafts as a means of improving the health of modern people and our planet.

Session: #406

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