Session: #1095

Content:

This session delves into the dynamic interplay between different scales of analysis and the spatial diversity of human-environment relationships throughout history. Environmental archaeology prioritizes understanding these relationships, offering insights for contemporary dialogues on sustainability, resilience, and the delicate equilibrium between humans and their surroundings. Recognition of scalar and contextual specificity works to avoid imposing universalized assumptions in our interpretive frameworks about how environments were used by past peoples. When universal explanatory frameworks are uncritically applied to discrete regional contexts, they often work to obscure our comparative understanding of human-environmental relationships.
Recent years have witnessed a surge in studies focused on ever-increasing ‘big-data’ analyses. However, this growth brings with it a discernible challenge – a widening gap between the abundance of data and the interpretations that can be drawn from them. The datasets crucial for reconstructing human-environmental interactions clearly vary in resolution, accuracy, and sampling intensity, presenting an obstacle to straightforward syntheses.
In this session, through the presentation of diverse case studies at various scales, we aim to unravel the nuanced challenges posed by these divergent datasets through the presentation of diverse case studies at various scales and analytical frameworks. By scrutinizing the intricacies within our empirical approaches, we hope to not only illuminate the past but also pave the way for more robust methodologies and interpretations in the future.

Session: #1095

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