Going Forward by Looking Back: Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse(3 Catastrophes in Context)

Catastrophes are on the rise due to climate change, as is their toll in terms of lives and livelihoods as world populations rise and people settle into hazardous places. While disaster response and management are traditionally seen as the domain of the natural and technical sciences, awareness of the importance and role of cultural adaptation is essential. This book catalogues a wide and diverse range of case studies of such disasters and human responses. This serves as inspiration for building culturally sensitive adaptations to present and future calamities, to mitigate their impact, and facilitate recoveries.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations, Figures and Tables Introduction: Framing Catastrophes Archaeologically Felix Riede and Payson Sheets Section I: Fire Chapter 1. Do Deep-Time Disasters Hold Lessons for Contemporary Understandings of Resilience and Vulnerability?: The Case of the Laacher See Volcanic Eruption Felix Riede and Rowan Jackson Chapter 2. Risky Business and the Future of the Past: Nuclear Power in the Ring of Fire Karen Holmberg Chapter 3. Do Disasters Always Enhance Inequality? Payson Sheets Chapter 4. Political Participation and Social Resilience to the 536/540 CE Atmospheric Catastrophe Peter Neal Peregrine Chapter 5. Collapse, Resilience, and Adaptation: An Archaeological Perspective on Continuity and Change in Hazardous Environments Robin Torrence Chapter 6. Continuity in the Face of a Slowly Unfolding Catastrophe: The Persistence of Icelandic Settlement Despite Large-Scale Soil Erosion Andrew Dugmore, Rowan Jackson, David Cooper, Anthony Newton, Árni Daníel Júlíusson, Richard Streeter, Viðar Hreinsson, Stefani Crabtree, George Hambrecht, Megan Hicks and Tom McGovern Chapter 7. Coping through Connectedness: A Network-Based Modeling Approach Using Radiocarbon Data from the Kuril Islands of Northeast Asia Erik Gjesfjeld and William A. Brown Section II: Water Chapter 8. The Materiality of Heritage Post-disaster: Negotiating Urban Politics, People, and Place through Collaborative Archaeology Kelly M. Britt Chapter 9. Mound-Building and the Politics of Disaster Debris Shannon Lee Dawdy Chapter 10. Catastrophe And Collapse in the Late Pre-Hispanic Andes: Responding for Half a Millennium to Political Fragmentation And Climate Stress Nicola Sharratt Chapter 11. Beyond One-Shot Hypotheses: Explaining Three Increasingly Large Collapses in the Northern Pueblo Southwest Timothy A. Kohler, Laura J. Ellyson, and R. Kyle Bocinsky Chapter 12. Inherent Collapse? Social Dynamics and External Forcing in Early Neolithic and Modern Southwest Germany Detlef Gronenborn, Hans-Christoph Strien, Kai Wirtz, Peter Turchin, Christoph Zielhofer, and Rolf van Dick Chapter 13. El Niño as Catastrophe on the Peruvian Coast Daniel H. Sandweiss and Kirk A. Maasch Chapter 14. A Slow Catastrophe: Anthropocene Futures and Cape Town’s “Day Zero” Nick Shepherd Conclusion: Rewriting the Disaster Narrative, an Archaeological Imagination Mark Schuller Index

About the Author :
Felix Riede is Professor of Archaeology at Aarhus University in Denmark. He heads the Laboratory for Past Disaster Science, and his research focuses on the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of Europe.

Review :
“This collection presents diverse studies of climate disasters and human responses, with a particular focus on how knowledge of past catastrophes and resilience in their aftermath can contribute to risk reduction in the future…This is a must-read book on how the world today will face and deal with recurrent disasters through the lens of deep history over time.   Highly Recommended.” • Choice “This book is causing me to think about how greater attention to environmental hazards through an archaeological lens can shine light on both the strengths and weaknesses of human societal responses…[It] represents an exciting attempt to bring the heft of deep history to bear on the formidable climate‐related challenges before us.” • American Anthropologist “The authors have analysed voluminous data from various sites to present a cogent picture of the response by societies to disasters resulting from volcanic eruptions, floods and droughts. The book should be read by policymakers and administrators to strengthen their work in finding disaster relief measures which are people friendly. The book has significant value.” • International Journal of Environmental Studies “This is an important body of work which significantly pushes the boundaries of the scope of archaeology… The volume is quite diverse, thematically, geographically, and in regard to the approach and methodological and theoretical perspectives taken. They add up to a highly interesting, stimulating, thought provoking, and inspiring work.” • Christian Isendahl, University of Gothenburg, Sweden