Theme:
4. People of the Present – Peopling the Past
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Precarious Living Conditions in the Past: A Multidisciplinary and Transchronological Approach
Content:
In our present, precarious living conditions are worldwide spread and increasing due to socioeconomic differences related to differential access to essential resources, security and basic needs. Causes may be linked to political and economic policies (intrinsic), climate catastrophes (extrinsic) or both (e.g., climate change) and can be long or short lasting, and individual or collective. Therefore, precarious living conditions are a major issue affecting people in the present as it affected people in the past. Untangling such ways of living from an archaeological perspective is essential to reconstruct living dynamics that affected human health, architecture or social organization among others from daily life conditions to historical perspectives in a given moment (e.g., crisis, conflicts or pandemics) or period (e.g., absence of hygiene, housing, slavery or poverty among others). Such individual or collective precarious conditions can be recovered archaeologically and our discipline is directing its interest towards them to reconstruct past lives and define socioeconomic dynamics of ancient societies.
In the present session we will discuss how we evidence precarious living conditions in the past using a wide range of perspectives and materiality (e.g., human and animal bones and other organic materials, pottery, lithic, structures and the landscape among many others) and what they tell us about ancient societies. We seek for general studies, case-studies and methodological advances from different periods and geographical locations with the aim of discussing precarious living conditions in the past. Furthermore, the session aims to define and discuss what precarious living conditions are in the past beyond the modern definition and in light of their historical contexts.
Keywords:
Archaeological Theory, Social Inequality, Crisis
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:
Ramón Gijón (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Carlos Tejerizo (Italy) 2
Marta Díaz-Zorita Bonilla (Germany) 3
Edgard Camarós (United Kingdom) 4
Affiliations:
1. Departamento de Medicina Legal, Toxicología y Antropología Física. Universidad de Granada, Spain
2. Dipartimento di Antichità, Filosofia, Storia e Geografia. Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy
3. Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Archäologie des Mittelalters University of Tübingen, Germany
4. Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT