Environment in North American and European Archaeology

Abstract

Environment has always been a central concept for Western archaeologists, although it has been conceived in many ways and its role in archaeological explanation has fluctuated from a mere backdrop to human action to a primary factor in the understanding of society and social change. Archaeology also has something of a unique position, for its base of interest positions it temporally between geological and ethnographic timescales, spatially between global and local dimensions, and epistemologically between empirical studies of environment change and more heuristic studies of cultural practice (See Crumley, Chapter 17 and Gosden, Chapter 18 in this volume; see also McIntosh et al. 2000; van der Leeuw and Redman 2002). Archaeology should therefore take on a prominent role when it comes to discussion of long-term human–environment interactions up to the present; however, archaeologists have not always been successful in promoting their data or consolidating a clear approach (Fisher and Feinman 2005; Mitchell 2008). As a point of departure, this introductory chapter aims to trace some of the fluctuating conceptions and applications of ‘environment’ within North American and European archaeology, with a particular emphasis on new trends and fruitful points of intersection between seemingly diverse paradigms. The history of concepts of the environment could take up a whole volume of its own and so this chapter is necessarily partial; however, I hope that it will raise a number of points of interest that can be explored further through the references given. The geographical range is also limited to broadly North American and European (especially British) archaeology. In the following chapter Olena Smyntyna will discuss the concept of environment in Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology, while it is hoped that future scholars may fruitfully write the history of such issues in other regional traditions. The chapter is split into three parts. The first deals with diverse ways in which ‘environment’ has been conceived or defined in Western thought, particularly within archaeology.