skip to navigation
ADS Main Website
Help
|
Login
/
Browse by Series
/
Series
/ Journal Issue
Internet Archaeology 53: Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards
Title
The title of the publication or report
Title:
Internet Archaeology 53: Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards
Series
The series the publication or report is included in
Series:
Internet Archaeology
Volume
Volume number and part
Volume:
53
Licence Type
ADS, CC-BY 4.0 or CC-BY 4.0 NC.
Licence Type:
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
International Licence
Publication Type
The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book
Publication Type:
Journal
Editor
The editor of the publication or report
Editor:
Judith Winters
Issue Editor
The editor of the volume or issue
Issue Editor:
Michelle Farrell
Suzi Richer
Seren Griffiths
Benjamin R Gearey
Year of Publication
The year the book, article or report was published
Year of Publication:
2019
Source
Where the record has come from or which dataset it was orginally included in.
Source:
ADS Library (ADS Library)
Relations
Other resources which are relevant to this publication or report
Relations:
URI:
http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue53/index.html
Created Date
The date the record of the pubication was first entered
Created Date:
03 Jul 2019
Please click on an Article link to go to the Article Details.
Article Title
Access Type
Author / Editor
Page
Start/End
Abstract
“I didn't know you were into that sort of thing?!”: Or Theoretical Confessions of an Environmental Archaeologist
Benjamin R Gearey
Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 53 'Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards'
Humming with cross-fire and short on cover
Seren Griffiths
Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 53 'Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards'
Environmental Archaeology, Progress and Challenges
Andy J Howard
This article explores how the discipline of environmental archaeology has fared over the past 15 years, reflecting on several themes considered by authors in Environmental Archaeology: Meaning and Purpose (Albarella 2001). Within this timeframe, two significant factors shaping the health of the discipline, namely government research audits and the commercialisation of environmental archaeology, have remained as constant drivers; therefore it might be perceived that little will have changed. However, alongside these two factors, the major issue of global climate change has come to the fore, resulting in debates that environmental archaeologists have the potential to contribute to significantly, in turn promoting the discipline. This article attempts to reflect on the health of the discipline, aided by a basic consideration of metrics data collected via Elsevier's Scopus platform. The empirical data pertaining to publication suggests that while the discipline has blossomed during the last 15 years, it has been influenced by external factors such as research audits. However, data from journal outputs provide only a partial story since a significant corpus of environmental archaeology literature is restricted to 'grey literature' or, if published, buried within larger site reports and monographs that are less easily captured by metrics. A search of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) website suggests that stand-alone environmental archaeological literature is infrequently archived and this has the effect of lowering the profile of the discipline, which invariably means that environmental archaeological data does not get the centre-stage attention or is promoted in a way that it deserves. Furthermore, this lack of systematic archiving has the potential to hide issues associated with data quality. This article argues that the volume of publication outputs is not the real issue that is likely to impact on environmental archaeology in coming years, but rather it is one of data accessibility and quality. The article concludes by considering how these challenges might be addressed.
Archaeology has no Relevance
Robert Marchant
Daryl Stump
Suzi Richer
Archaeologists are under pressure to demonstrate that their work has impact beyond the discipline. This has prompted some archaeologists — and in particular environmental archaeologists and palaeoecologists — to argue that an understanding of past environmental changes is essential to model future outcomes in areas such as climate change, land cover change, soil health and food security. However, few archaeological studies have explored how to put research results into practice, and most archaeologists seem unaware of a substantial literature on research-led policy design produced primarily within the social sciences and development studies. We briefly summarise this literature, report on our attempts to engage directly with policy makers and NGOs working on sustainable agriculture, and ultimately recommend that future projects should be co-designed with potential end-users from the outset.
Wildness: Conceptualising the wild in contemporary environmental archaeology
Andrew W Hoaen
Any environmental archaeology approach to contemporary environments and landscapes has to take into account present day ecologies and environmental histories. How we theorise our approach to these ecologies particularly those designated as wild or natural is a question that this paper attempts to examine. It argues that we should look to the environmental humanities to develop theoretical frameworks that can guide our interpretations.
Commercial Environmental Archaeology: are we back in the dark ages or is environmental archaeology a potential agent of change?
Elizabeth Pearson
I remember the 1998 TAG conference on which this 2015 TAG session was based, and the ensuing debates. The discussion about whether environmental archaeologists were overly concerned with nature over culture, and of churning out data but not engaging with theoretical approaches familiar to other archaeologists, still sticks in my mind. I've used the term 'environmental archaeology', simply because a suitable replacement has not appeared in the intervening 15 to 16 years. I have my problems with this label too, but this is not the focus of this article.The main question for the 2015 conference was '… has anything changed?' My feeling is that for environmental archaeologists working in the commercial field, methodology has diversified, and sub-specialisms have grown (geoarchaeology, for instance), but engaging with new theoretical approaches has proven to be more difficult. There are many reasons why the working environment of the commercial sector isn't conducive to grappling with new theoretical developments. Does that mean we are back in the dark ages?If that means we are on the back foot in one aspect, then we are on the front foot in others! That we are part of a sector that has been generating 'big data' for decades is an advantage. New approaches to theory need data, and we are getting much better at making a large body of data and grey literature easily accessible. It is a formidable research resource. The material archive is also growing in museums, through which methods and approaches to interpretation can be tested and developed.The data bank from new fieldwork is continually being used to re-assess how we protect archaeological sites and excavate or investigate new ones. The difference is that this arises from a cohesive and funded approach. Much of this re-assessment has been carried out by those working in the commercial sector, with some joint working with the university sector and community groups.However, if we are to investigate future sites in ways that address new concepts and furthers research, then a greater degree of joint working between those based in commercial archaeology and the broader research community would be valuable. Theory and data need to be co-dependent.
Pinned Down in the Trenches? Revisiting environmental archaeology
Terry P O'Connor
A discipline called environmental archaeology emerged in the 1970s, established itself as an important part of archaeological post-excavation practice, and promptly developed an identity crisis. At regular intervals since, the discipline has tried to decide what defines it and what its overall theoretical paradigm should or could be. This article considers some of the challenges that have inhibited the development of a consensus theoretical framework, not least the working practices of commercial field archaeology. The role of niche-construction models in archaeology is discussed, and the article considers the place of new analytical methodologies and interaction with the public as opportunities to develop new theoretical perspectives.
Environmental Archaeology - connection and communication
Suzi Richer
Afterword for Internet Archaeology Issue 53 'Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards'
Beyond Extractive Practice: Bioarchaeology, Geoarchaeology and Human Palaeoecology for the People
Matthew Law
Too much of the work we might class as environmental archaeology can be characterised as extractive and linear. Samples of interest may be taken from a locality, but the results are seldom shared with people who may have an interest in that locality (beyond the dig director and readers of the subsequent publication), nor is the opportunity given to wider stakeholders to ask questions of the samples and find out about the things that interest them. This article argues that, to borrow the language of sustainability, a more circular and reciprocal approach, founded on wider community engagement, is in our best interest. Results of two surveys are presented. The first asked community archaeology groups in the UK about their experiences with experts in biological remains and archaeological soils and sediments. The second asked some of those very experts about their experiences of community engagement and co-creation, both in the UK and on international projects. Springing from this, an agenda is presented for a more inclusive, and more sustainable, bioarchaeology, geoarchaeology and human palaeoecology.
Agendas for Archaeobotany in the 21st Century: data, dissemination and new directions
Lisa Lodwick
Archaeobotany, here taken as the study of archaeological plant macrofossil remains, is a mature and widely practised area of study within archaeology. However, plants are rarely seen as active participants in past societies. Recent critical evaluations of the field of archaeobotany have focused on methodological issues, chronological and regional overviews and biomolecular developments, rather than theoretical approaches or research practices. This article aims to reflect on future agendas in archaeobotany, which may improve the use and communication of archaeobotanical data, and invigorate discussion. First, the article briefly reviews the development of archaeobotany in Britain, before focusing discussion on the areas of data publication and archiving, and the application of archaeological theory to archaeobotanical remains. Opportunities provided by the 'plant turn' in social sciences and humanities are explored in relation to plant materiality. The use of the Internet in training and analysis is considered, before reflecting on how archaeobotany has been successfully communicated to broader audiences.
Semantics of the Sea — Stories and Science along the Celtic Seaboard
Erin Kavanagh
Martin R Bates
The stories of Noah, Gilgamesh and Atlantis are internationally known, telling of lands submerged beneath the sea. Similar stories exist for the European seaboard, from Brittany through southern England, Wales, Ireland and parts of Scotland. Today we know that many areas now lost beneath the sea were dry land in the not so distant past; consequently, papers purporting to link the geological events associated with flooding these lands and such stories have been written. However, these papers have been written from the perspective of the scientist, with little regard for the perspective of the story or from that of the story-teller. In this article we attempt to redress this inferred normativity by drawing attention to the problematic nature of such an endeavour, developing a discussion about how else one might approach this balance from that opened by fields as diverse as folklore, ethnography and archaeo-astronomy.