Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arlen Chase. Diane Chase. Adrian Chase.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Long-term archaeological research at Caracol, Belize has revealed a sizeable city with over 100,000 inhabitants at A.D. 650 that practiced intensive agriculture within its urban boundaries. Over 160 square kilometers of the landscape within Caracol was anthropogenic, having been rebuilt to both provide agricultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lana Dorr. Jada Langston. Sophia Coren. Horia Ciugudean. Colin Quinn.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Activism through ethical community engagement is now a requirement, rather than an elective, of all scholars. Archaeologists have a responsibility to mobilize our understanding of the past, especially to achieve mutual goals we have with modern community partners with whom we work. As an example, we present a case study...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vernon Scarborough.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology is at a crossroads with a new generation of scholars more mindful of our disciplinary role within the social milieu we occupy. For years, the word "applied" in several corridors of our discipline implied something other than rigor and certainly of less significance than the real work of reconstructing past...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cynthia Robin.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As over half of the world lives in cities today, there is perhaps no more pressing question than: how can people create cities that are sustainable? Archaeology is uniquely suited to answer questions about the longevity of cities, because archaeologists excavate long expanses of human history. The social, political,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chelsea Fisher.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ejido (collective agricultural landholding) of Yaxunah, Yucatán, Mexico is known among archaeologists for its pre-Hispanic archaeological sites. But among a growing contingent of food aficionados, Yaxunah is known for its cooking. Having attracted the interest of celebrity chefs like René Redzepi (Noma, Copenhagen),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher T. Fisher.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The societal impact of climate change in Central Mexico during the Postclassic Period is an important question in Mesoamerican archaeology. Here, using archaeological evidence from the ancient city of Angamuco, including LiDAR analysis, I argue that an engineered environment buffered the environment from reduced rainfall...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Proebsting.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past thirty years, landscape archaeology has been used to study Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home and plantation located in Bedford County, Virginia. A goal of this work has been to cultivate a deeper understanding of the individuals who lived and labored on Poplar Forest plantation as well as how their households...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Zimmermann. Gabriel Ortiz A la triste.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food security and food adequacy are at the core of many sustainability debates. Growing urban populations and a simultaneous decline in staple crops are severe threats to both. While the relation between rising demographics and subsistence has been a focus of scholarly debate in anthropology, crop diversity in ancient...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Antoniou. Earl Davis.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the U.S., indigenous communities often suffer poor health at far greater rates than non-native populations. Lower life expectancy and the disproportionate disease burden exist often because their local food diversity and sources have been diminished by restricted access and economic stresses. To remedy these health...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Tainter.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The processes that make a society sustainable not evolve over periods of decades, generations, and centuries. These processes are commonly not perceivable in a single lifetime. Sustainability must therefore be a historical science, and archaeology is well placed to contribute to understanding sustainability. Yet factors...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anabel Ford. Cynthia Ellis Topsey.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Globally, the Mesoamerican and Maya Milpa is gravely misunderstood as primitive, called shifting cultivation by the sole focus on annual crops combined with the fallacy of fallow, accurately defined as an unseeded plowed field. The attention to the annuals ignores the intentional and patient development of perennials,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Perez Rodriguez.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Researchers that study pre-Hispanic urbanism in the Mixteca Alta often remark that the region today is eroded and sparsely populated. Places that in the past supported urban populations in the tens of thousands today seem to struggle to sustain a few hundred. Some have called this the Mixtec paradox. Research on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carole Crumley.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Historical ecology offers a wide variety of resources for better contemporary management and increased well-being in the future. These can be applied at all spatial scales, from that of the planet to regions, bio-climatic zones, landscapes, and specific places. Historical ecology can help safeguard natural resources...