Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Throughout time, humans around the world engaged with, adapted to, and exacerbated environmental changes to sustain livelihood and create meaningful relationships with place. Through a global perspective, this session employs an understanding of Landscape as an active, social, and physical process, to explore how past societies make, respond to, and transform dynamic landscapes through time. We explore the relationship between landscapes and memory, while readdressing the definition of dynamic landscapes. Dynamic landscapes have often been associated with environmental changes and human modifications that impact the physical characteristics of an area. These spaces are not only reflected in the material world but are also manifested within memory or knowledge of the individuals and communities that live in them. We acknowledge that environmental change can be rapid, gradual, disastrous, beneficial, and a product of physical or social factors. We also acknowledge that impacts of environmental change and landscape transformation are not always equally experienced across societies. Both landscapes and the memories of people who live in these landscapes are dynamic; they are built through periods of both stability and instability. Through archaeological methods, we can study what makes dynamic places meaningful through lasting legacies and changes in the past.