Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

How do we figure out how to live in unfamiliar places? For nearly 20 years, the model of landscape learning—which outlines how humans gather, use, remember, and share environmental information—has been a pathway for archaeologists to explore the processes of adaptation as part of human colonization and migration in many times and places around the world. But from its inception, landscape learning was also recognized as something humans need to do any time they find themselves in environments they do not know. Modern anthropogenic climate change is now changing environments around the world in new and rapid ways. The World Bank estimates that more than 200 million people will likely migrate due to climate by 2050—and billions more will experience their environments changing around them. Landscape learning is becoming a project for all of human society. Therefore, we now ask: What has archaeology learned about landscape learning that can help with the challenges of climate change? This session explores human capacity and practices in learning environments, examines how threads of learning—or lack thereof—have contributed to our present, and proposes ideas for policy for archaeology, migration, and climate adaptation going forward.