Theme:
2. Net Zero Archaeologies – Sustainability in the Past, Present and Future
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
CANCELLED What did the Romans ever do for us? Environmental perspectives.
Content:
The Roman Period is a crucial phase in the evolution of Holocene landscapes due to the coincidence of major climatic, environmental, economic and cultural changes and, as a result, it attracts a great deal of interest. It was also a period of deep cultural transformations with a high mobile society around the Mediterranean. The integration of multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental, archaeological and historical data has improved our understanding of the synergies between societal and environmental change during this period. But what is new in the environmental archaeology of the Roman world? We would welcome contributions from all aspects of environmental archaeology to consider new perspectives and themes to examine the contribution of the Romans on everyday life compared to their precursors in the Iron Age and subsequently during the Medieval period. Themes that have attracted some debate recently include conquest, continuity and change, adaptation, resilience, human-environment interactions, economic activity and trade, and the impact of mining and metallurgy etc. Question of historical relevance as differences between republican and imperial times, whether the change occurred simultaneously with the conquest or was gradual, and if a return to typical Iron Age management strategies can be detected at the end of the Roman Empire, such as the Gallification of the Western Empire, are also welcome. To explore these, contributions are sort using different approaches (e.g. microfossils, animal and human bones, aDNA, invertebrate remains, natural archives such as peatlands or lake sediments; artificial water deposits; soil analyses; etc) to provide additional insights to the relationship between the Romans, their environment and the interaction with other cultures.
Keywords:
environmental archaeology, palaeoenvironment, human-environment interactions, human remains, natural archives, zooarchaeology
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:
Main organiser:
Tim Mighall (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Olalla López-Costas (Spain) 2
Antonio Martínez Cortizas (Spain) 2
Clemens Von Scheffer (United Kingdom) 1
Scott Timpany (United Kingdom) 3
Affiliations:
1. University of Aberdeen
2. University of Santiago de Compostela
3. University of the Highlands and Islands
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