Is the past key to the present? Observations of cultural continuity and resilience reconstructed from geoarchaeological records

Abstract

“Collapse” is an engaging buzzword that captivates public interest; as such, the notion of demise remains a dominant theme in studies of ancient civilizations. Our textbooks teach that the Roman Empire and Han dynasty (to name a few oft-cited examples) crumbled, and some, like the Maya and the Harappan suddenly – if not mysteriously – disappeared. In this manner, studying archaeology is promoted as a basis of prognostication for our modern Anthropocene, the timeframe when human agency became ascendant and affected global change. Well established models of collapse suggested that cultural downfall was predicated by hydroclimate-driven ecological and environmental crises that were both unavoidable and insurmountable, and resulted in finite end-points like abandonments and disappearances. Such deterministic or apocalyptic notions of societal collapses are appealing and tidy, but incomplete narratives. Emerging research has moved beyond simplistic and linear interpretations of antiquity, invoking anthropological paradigms of continuity, social resilience and transformation, as well as new methodological approaches for resolving how cultures may have assimilated, or coped by strategic adaptation, migration, socio-political reorganization or technological innovation. Interpretations of geoarchaeological records in context of environmental reconstructions underscore themes raised by post-processual anthropologists, such as the need to view cultural change as a continuum through environmental changes. With these themes in mind, we link selected examples of modern studies of many regions with a special focus on North African drylands with archaeological records that provide contexts for reconstructing how cultures coped. Formal resilience theory, built on concepts that were originally borrowed from ecology, offers more realistic frameworks for reconstructions of the past that enable us to ask nuanced questions about sustainability strategies during political transitions, socio-political crisis events like warfare and disease, crop collapse, soil loss, extreme weather (including hurricanes, floods, droughts), and resource availability. Resilience and persistence of cultures is a given, and is inherent in the progressive study of ancient cultures and modern societies living in marginal environments, and facing hydroclimate change, overpopulation, and scarcity of resources. As such, geoarchaeological studies are vital for unpacking the Anthropocene.