Theme:
5. Climate Change and Socioenvironmental Perspectives
Session format:
Discussion session (with formal abstracts)
Title:
Technology, Regionalisation and Environmental Adaptation in Europe and beyond [PaM]
Content:
In recent years, the rise of detailed material culture studies, the refinement of chronologies and the focus on the diversity of subsistence practices have paved the way towards a dynamic narrative of heterogeneous hunter-gatherer groups of Mesolithic Europe. These narratives focus on foragers responding differently to local biotopes through their material culture and social and technological choices.
This applies especially to the late forager societies of the Baltic Sea region, but also to Western and Central European late Mesolithic groups. These hunter-gatherers often existed in close proximity to the established Neolithic and thus were not only confronted with diverse environments in an ecological sense, but also exposed to and in some cases actively engaged in various influences and exchange in regard to technological innovations and subsistence practices.
In this session, we would like to explore to what extent relationships between the environment, humans and things actually influenced patterns of regionality, trade, technological traditions and the spreading of innovations within hunter-gatherer societies between 7000 and 4000 BC in the regions mentioned above. Our focus is on thinking beyond environments as purely ecological but as social and cultural settings in which human relationships flourish. Specifically, we explore:
How do innovative technologies help societies adapt to their environment and influence social developments? Are technological developments prompted by specific environmental conditions or climatic changes, and at what scale? What is the connection between technological developments and social and cultural choices? Is the environment a determining factor for regionality, or is the latter instead prompted by strong human interconnectivity?
Through this session, we hope to foster new approaches in exploring the unique connections and mutual dependencies between humans, things and given social, cultural and ecological environments in forager societies of Europe and beyond.
Keywords:
hunter-gatherer societies, technological innovations, regionality, environmental adaption, Mesolithic Europe, human-thing interconnectivity
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
PaM
Main organiser:
Ann-Katrin Meyer (Germany) 1
Co-organisers:
Solveig Chaudesaigues-Clausen (Norway) 2
Affiliations:
1. University of Hamburg
2. University of Bergen
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