Session: #306

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
2. Net Zero Archaeologies – Sustainability in the Past, Present and Future
Session format:
Regular session

Title & Content

Title:
Multiproxy Geoarchaeology to Understand Human-Environmental Interactions from Local to Global Changes
Content:
Palaeoenvironmental studies have demonstrated that our planet during the last 11,700 years has been punctuated by tremendous changes in local and regional ecosystems. This was characterised by significant variability not only in terms of intensity and chronology but also of the underlying forcing mechanisms. Understanding these variations on a regional scale has often been tackled by studies focused on the vegetation history inferred from fossil pollen sequences from single sedimentary archives, and correlating the environmental changes with variations in past climate conditions.

However, increasing geomorphodynamics evidence and soil formation-erosion phases highlight the role of past human societies in driving cross-latitudinal landscape changes since the Early Holocene on several continents. Furthermore, the use of multi-proxy analysis (e.g. geochemistry, soil micromorphology, isotope analysis, a.o.) of archaeological and sedimentary deposits to reconstruct past climate conditions and understand past human impact is still largely underrepresented within palaeoenvironmental research. As an example, how can the integrated approach of geoarchaeological and geochemical techniques help unfold the forcing mechanisms of Holocene environmental change at a local scale? How can the combined investigation of archaeological sites and sedimentary archives at larger scale refine current narratives of environmental change at a local to regional scale? Can a geoarchaeological multiproxy site-based approach provide relevant insight into human-climate-environmental interactions?

For this session, we would like to invite works that have followed innovative multidisciplinary approaches to disentangle the cause and mechanisms of past environmental changes or human-environmental responses. In particular, we wish to discuss the potential of combining pollen, other bioarchaeological methods, soil micromorphological, isotope approaches, and geochemical analysis from archaeological sites and sedimentary deposits from sites around the world and from polar to tropical environments.
Keywords:
Holocene, large-scale changes, human-environment interplay, anthropogenic factors, bio-geoarchaeological methods
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:

Organisers

Main organiser:
Gian Marras (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Søren Kristiansen (Denmark) 2,3,4
Affiliations:
1. University of Cambridge
2. Institute for Geoscience - Aarhus University
3. iCLIMATE Aarhus University Interdisciplinary Centre for Climate Change
4. Institut for Kultur og Samfund - Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet)