Deep pasts – Deep futures a palaeoenvironmental humanities perspective from the Stone Age to the human age

Abstract

Coagulating around the notion of the Anthropocene – the proposed geological epoch of the ‘Human Age’ where anthropogenic control of and impact on nature has taken on a magnitude comparable to geological forces – many traditional humanities disciplines are rediscovering the environment as worthy of study. The emerging environmental humanities are dismantling the founding divisions of academic practice that have been confining the study of ‘nature’ to the natural sciences and the study of ‘culture’ to the humanities. Indeed, one of the environmental humanities’ most central contributions has been addressing the question of ethical involvement when it comes to environmental research that has relevance in contemporary climate change debates. With its longstanding multidisciplinary affiliations and its many outstanding case studies of how the climates of the deep past have affected contemporaneous communities and how these communities have shaped their environs at various scales, archaeology is well positioned to make a contribution here. Yet, the discipline has been marginal in these emerging debates. I attempt in this keynote paper to bring together thoughts about the national framing of archaeological practice, archaeological interpretation and heritage management in Europe with preoccupations about past societal collapse under the umbrella of environmental ethical concerns. I argue that archaeologists should involve themselves in the wider environmental humanities project – and attempt to show how – but caution that due diligence is needed when operating in such a politically charged debate.