Landscape Evolution and Human Agency: Archaeological Case Studies from Drylands in Western South América and Australia (original) (raw)
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Chungará (Arica), 2008
Landscapes represent a dynamic point of articulation between humans and the environment. While often dichotomized, humans are active participants in the environment and often play a pivotal role in its transformation over time. In this paper, we use case studies from western South America and Australia to illustrate the importance of studying long-term dynamics between humans and the environment. Such investigations can bring significant historical depth to environmental change and the role humans have played in altering courses of landscape evolution and species biodiversity. Humans comprise a critical element in environmental change, and collectively, our results hold strong implications for issues related to sustainability and effective management of our planet’s desert resources.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 281 (3-4), 283-295, 2009
""Abstract: Interactions between human societies and the environment that they inhabit have been a controversial topic in archaeology for at least the past fifty years. Currently, modern theoretical approaches take this subject as a key issue in their research agenda. This paper presents a review of the main outcomes of several archaeological and multidisciplinary South American projects related to this theme. The case-studies discussed here are all located within arid settings, and can be grouped into three broad geographic areas: Puna (or Altiplano) of northwestern Argentina, Cuyo (west-central Argentina), and southern Patagonia. These regions cover a wide latitudinal range extending from 22° to 52° S. They were selected for comparison due to environmental similarities, and a common record of past climate impacts mainly related to the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Although the impacts of these climatic changes were locally heterogeneous in their intensity and the quality of the available information is regionally variable, they provide a base-line for comparison and supra-regional integration. The integration of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data on this broad supra-regional spatial scale allows us to identify interesting historical trajectories associated with particular time periods. As an example, there are some spatial rearrangements of large populations during the MCA, in the three areas. Additionally, there are variable patterns in the changes associated with the different social contexts that impose specific demographic and economic constraints. Finally, this study sets the basis for new questions and provides a guide to the methodological and theoretical issues that we need to address in order to answer them. Keywords: Archaeology – Palaeoenvironments - Late Holocene - Argentinean deserts Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 281 (2009) 283–295 © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.""
Historical Ecology and Landscape Archaeology in Lowland South America
Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, 2023
The tropical and subtropical lowlands of South America have some of the most diverse—yet threatened—biomes on earth and have supported human populations since the Late Pleistocene. Investigations under the broad conceptual framework of Historical Ecology and Landscape Archaeology have shown that for thousands of years humans have contributed to shaping and transforming some of these environments. Human transformation of South American landscapes and environments through time can offer comparative examples to other areas of the world; however, the nature and scale of these interactions are matters of debate and their legacy to modern ecosystems and local ecological knowledge is not fully understood. In addition to these challenges, conservation and restoration ecology in lowland South America is marked by shallow historical perspectives, while pervasive and compounded anthropogenic impacts over the last decades have accelerated biodiversity loss and population decline in a range of biomes, increasing the vulnerability of people and environments in this region. Understanding the scale of these stressors is extremely complex and exacerbated by the paucity of long-term records on plant and animal species composition, abundance and distribution pre-dating scientific observations. This sort of historical amnesia creates misconceptions that have far-reaching consequences for sustainability and conservation actions. For example, it may conceivably increase tolerance for progressive environmental degradation and contribute to setting inappropriate sustainability targets and responses by stakeholders, and hence underpin their expectations as to what are desirable and achievable states of social-ecological systems. This volume addresses some of these issues by bringing together contributions from a range of disciplines involving archaeology and social and environmental sciences. Most of the chapters were presented in the symposium “Historical ecology and landscape archaeology in lowland South America” organized at the 20th Conference of the Society of Brazilian Archaeology in Pelotas, Brazil, in 2019. Part I (Legacies) offers studies that explore the legacy of past interactions and their contributions to informing current archaeological, conservation and development agendas and management strategies. Part II (Our Shared Past) presents case studies of human—nature interactions in the past, from plant management to aquatic exploitation. Interdisciplinary approaches are used to assess the evolution of past human practices and their implications on modern ecosystems, biological diversity and landscapes. Here we showcase how recent collaborative research efforts between archaeologists, historians, social-environmental scientists and local stakeholders can productively advance our understanding of past and modern ecosystems, and the synergetic roles of cultural and natural drivers of change in their long-term development in lowland South America. The volume targets academics as well as the general public, local stakeholders and policy makers who may benefit from a historical perspective in attempts to balance effective solutions to anthropogenic environmental change while prioritizing human wellbeing and prosperity in the face of sustainability challenges in lowland South America.