ANTH 235, ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Culture aids humans in adapting to two kinds of environments – socialandnatural.

Environmental archaeology views humans as an integral part of the natural world, interacting with other species in an ecological system.

See the Association for Environmental Archaeology’s web page at:

Ecofacts (or biofacts): contractions of “ecological artifacts” and “biological artifacts,” respectively

The environment is a variable, not a constant, through both space and time and, therefore, it must be thought of in terms of its potential impact on human societies.

HOW DO ARCHAEOLOGISTS INVESTIGATE PAST ENVIRONMENTS?

The first step is to look at a global scale:

  • evidence from oceans (sediment cores as a measure of water temperature; changes in planktonic foraminifera species in deep-sea ooze indicate changes in sea water temperatures)
  • oxygen isotope studies (from both deep-sea cores and ice cores in glaciated regions); variations in the 18O/16O ratio at one place can indicate variation in precipitation
  • ancient coastlines (changes due to water locked up in polar ice; eustasy or changes in sea-levels)
  • tracing submerged land surfaces (corollary to exposed beaches)
  • ancient art (depictions of plants and animals unknown in the region today)

STUDYING THE LANDSCAPE (a more local-scale line of inquiry):

  • glaciated landscapes (depression of the Earth’s surface, rebound effects, erosion)
  • varves (annual layers of sediments deposited in lakes during spring thaw)
  • rivers (changes in channel)
  • sediments and soils (different types associated with various conditions)
  • tree-rings and climate (dendroclimatology)

RECONSTRUCTING THE PLANT ENVIRONMENT (paleoethnobotany or archaeobotany):

Plants are overshadowed by animals in archaeology simply because, in general, bones and teeth preserve better than plant parts, but there are several lines of important evidence available for archaeologists:

  • pollen grains (the study of which is called palynology). Plant pollen is incredibly durable!

The largest pollen grains in this photo are roughly 100 microns in diameter; about the same as a human hair.

  • phytoliths (“plant opals,” silica bodies that form in the cellular systems of many plants, especially grasses, including rice and bamboo)

  • diatom analysis (diatoms are unicellular algae with silica cell walls)
  • rock varnishes (only about 1% is organic, so very large samples are required for analysis)
  • macrobotanical remains (seeds, fruits, leaves, stems, wood, etc.)

RECONSTRUCTING THE ANIMAL ENVIRONMENT (zooarchaeology or archaeozoology):

  • microfauna (small mammals are especially sensitive to environmental changes). Includes terrestrial and marine mollusks, worms, insects, etc.
  • macrofauna (larger animals, mostly vertebrates, both mammals and birds). This category often constitutes the bulk of the zooarchaeological record (see diagram below).
  • isotopic analyses of bone (to determine diet of animals; amino acids in bone collagen to reconstruct temperature and humidity patterns)
  • other sources of information [ancient dung, called coprolites (when fossilized)or boluses (when preserved by desiccation, etc.); preserved trackways; tooth and claw marks on bone and other materials; blood residues on stone tools]

The five most common faunal species in the Middle Stone Age (MSA; red) & Late Stone Age (LSA; blue) levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa
(based on information provided by Richard Klein & Katherine Cruz-Uribe;

“NISP” = Number of Individual Specimens, a measure of relative frequency)

RECONSTRUCTING THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Archaeologists must always consider the “non-empirical environment”…but, it’s very hard to deal with quantitatively!

ANALYZING HUMAN EXPLOITATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT:

Modification of the immediate environment or living area:

  • first method was controlled use of fire (earliest reliable evidence 1.5 million years ago at Swartkrans, South Africa; not common until after 500,000 years ago at, e.g., Zhoukoudian, China; Torralba/Ambrona, Spain; Vertesszöllös, Hungary; etc.)
  • modification of the living space (alteration of caves, construction of dwellings)

land-use studies (part of off-site archaeology) examine the human exploitation of the wider environment

Site Catchment Analysis: Geographic Information Systems can be used to generate exploitation territories from which carrying capacity can be calculated, yielding artificial and highly problematical population estimates.

See, for example, Eamonn Baldwin’s project at:

CONCLUSION:

Environmental analysis is no longer undertaken simply to “set the scene” for particular periods of past human activity.

Archaeology now strives to understand former environments in order to assess the key variables that might have influenced the operation of cultural systems.

The goal of environmental archaeology is not to prove the validity of environmental determinism (the proposition that natural environmental change alonecauses culture change), but rather to understand the complex web of articulations that describe human-environmental interactions over time (i.e., diachronically).