Archaeology as Actionable Science on Climate Change: Lessons from Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Summary

Within archaeology, it is widely assumed recognized that the field has much to offer present and future efforts to address climate change. From an archaeological perspective, this may be directly through data, improved models of human adaptation, building or preserving modern connections to place, to name a few. However, to date these have not been well-incorporated into federal efforts to address climate change, largely as a result of a lack of systematic engagement. To address this gap for archaeology and other social sciences, in 2016 the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) undertook an effort to engage four underrepresented social science disciplines to support preparation of the fourth US National Climate Assessment and other ongoing federal work. This paper presents the experiences of three archaeologists and one anthropologist involved in this project and an assessment of what worked, what was a challenge, and recommendations for improving the art of connecting study of the past to actionable government results for global climate change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20423