Social Memory and Sustainability in Dynamic Landscapes

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

We explore the role of social memory in facilitating human survival within the dynamic landscape of southwest Madagascar. By analyzing an oral history archive compiled through interviews with over 100 knowledge holders in the Velondriake Marine Protected Area, we address questions about human adaptation to climate and environmental change. Our work highlights the central role of social memory in facilitating and regulating adaptive strategies, including community mobility, social networking, and shared resource use among groups of foragers, farmers, herders, and fishers in the region. We discuss the relevance of this work for understanding human adaptation in deeper time. Southwest Madagascar is an ideal place to explore connections between social memory and adaptation. Paleoclimate records reveal dramatic shifts during the Late Holocene, a period coinciding with substantial social and ecological change as human populations grow, introduce non-native plants and animals, and rely on a wider range of subsistence modes. Surface surveys and excavations suggest that short-term occupations and frequent residential mobility have been central features of life on the southwest coast for millennia. Today, mobility remains key to the lives of local communities. We argue that social memory, its maintenance, and transmission are key to sustaining lifeways in dynamic landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37000.0