Conclusion

This chapter reflects on the state of the field and assesses what the approaches represented in this volume collectively can achieve; the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of historical ecology and applied archaeology and the overlap between them. Definitions drawing on the discourse developed in the volume of both concepts are offered, and the opportunities and challenges of inter- and transdisciplinary research are summarized. The future of a usable past is discussed by contextualizing volume chapters in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals. It is suggested that research in the fields of historical ecology and applied archaeology follows three main approaches: (1) generating case studies of the past as difference, elucidating phenomena in the past that may suggest alternative possibilities to those observed in the present; (2) informing phenomena observed in the present by generating analogous case studies from the past; and (3) detailing the dynamics of long-term human–environmental processes.

Digging for Indigenous Knowledge

Stratigraphic excavation is perhaps the defining technique of archaeological research, since it is this approach that provides the necessary contextual information for all other forms of archaeological sampling. Rightly perceived as intensive in terms of labour, time, and resources, excavation seems at odds with the aims of developmental interventions that are often under pressure to produce rapid and sustainable solutions to immediate and ongoing environmental and human crises. Drawing on research in eastern Africa, this chapter will argue that some questions of relevance to developmental and conservationist debates can nevertheless only be answered through detailed stratigraphic data, and that these data are essential in order to construct models of landscape change and to assess the sustainability and resilience of these landscapes.

From Narratives to Algorithms

The static, fragmentary nature of the archaeological record requires us to construct models of past human dynamics. Traditionally, these have been in the form of narratives that can make compelling stories but are difficult to evaluate. Recent advances in numerical and computational modelling offer the potential to create quantitative representations of human systems and carry out experiments in social dynamics that would otherwise be impossible. These new approaches challenge us to learn to conceive of human societies in ways that can be expressed in algorithmic form. Besides making our own explanations more rigorous, integrating quantitative modelling into archaeological practice helps us produce more robust accounts of human systems and their long-term changes that can be more useful to other disciplines and policy-makers than compelling narratives.

Soils, Plants, and Texts

Archaeologists are increasingly used to producing and synthesizing multidisciplinary data, particularly where threats to environmental conservation and subsistence have led to calls for applied research. This chapter explores how environmental, geoarchaeological, and historical information can help us understand the long-term impact of farming in northern Ethiopia. Here, the expansion of farming communities and, later, the rise of the kingdom of Aksum (first millennium AD) are thought to have set this region onto the road of environmental degradation. This narrative of cultural-environmental history has informed modern understandings of Ethiopian landscapes and peoples. However, new information extracted from buried soils (soil micromorphology), plant microfossils (phytoliths), and travel accounts indicate prolonged settlement and landscape stability until recent times. The resulting new narrative offers an opportunity to discuss the challenges of translating knowledge of the past into applied research.

Community and Conservation

n recent decades, sustainability research and historical ecology research have made the incorporation of local and traditional ecological knowledge (LTK) a priority for the purpose of understanding recent environmental change and achieving long-term perspectives on local resource interactions. This chapter brings together the evidence from archaeological, ecological, historical, and ethnographic sources to document the 1,100 year management of wild birds around Lake Mývatn in northern Iceland. In doing so, it sheds light on specific long-term resource management strategies applied by the community: precise, limited egg collection, and regulated bird hunting. These methods seem to have been effective in sustaining large, local bird populations and ensuring continual access to an important economic and dietary resource.

Growing the Ancient Maya Social-Ecological System from the Bottom Up

Archaeological data can be represented in quantitative models to test theories of societal growth, development, and resilience. This chapter describes the results of simulations employing integrated agent-based, cellular automata, and network models to represent elements of the ancient Maya social-ecological system. The purpose of the model is to better understand the complex dynamics of the Maya civilization and to test quantitative indicators of resilience as predictors of system sustainability or decline. The model examines the relationship between population growth, agricultural production, pressure on ecosystem services, forest succession, value of trade, and the stability of trade networks. These combine to allow agents representing Maya settlements to develop and expand within a landscape that changes under climate variation and responds to anthropogenic pressure. The model is able to reproduce spatial patterns and timelines somewhat analogous to that of the ancient Maya, although this model requires refinement and further archaeological data for calibration.

Landscaping, Landscape Legacies, and Landesque Capital in Pre-Columbian Amazonia

How do human and landscape histories reciprocally affect each other? Can we distinguish between deliberate and unintended anthropic transformations of the landscape? This chapter summarizes evidence from pre-Columbian Amazonia in order to discuss the relation between three dimensions of anthropic landscape transformations: landscaping, landscape legacies, and landesque capital. Conflation between these three categories can lead to theoretical road closures and certainly risks oversimplifying both causality and consequence when anthropic landscape modifications are considered. On the other hand, paying attention to their differences defines a rich field of research in which historical ecology, earth-scientific thinking, and human niche construction theory converge.

The Rehabilitation of Pre-Hispanic Agricultural Infrastructure to Support Rural Development in the Peruvian Andes

For the last 35 years an approach to rural development based on archaeological and environmental data and the accumulation of practical experience has underlain the Cusichaca Trust’s projects in different regions of highland Peru. The challenge has not just been the technical one of reviving centuries old systems of irrigation canals and agricultural terraces. Equally important has been the social goal of working alongside highland farming communities to consolidate traditional knowledge and encourage local capacities and responsibilities. This chapter presents a review of the Trust’s work and an assessment of the future possibilities for this example of ‘applied archaeology’

The Invisible Landscape

This chapter highlights the experiences and results of a decade-long investigation of an Etruscan water tunnel (cuniculum) on a central Italian farm and the adaptation of this engineering method to a contemporary water distribution system. The history of these drainage and water distribution tunnels is discussed and the attributes that have made it possible for Etruscan water systems to survive over two millennia are identified. The chapter then proposes ways that this technology can be applied to the challenges posed by sustainable agriculture today. The discussion concludes by comparing a zero emission water distribution system that is currently employed on the author’s farm to its Etruscan ancestor, and suggests how archaeological knowledge can be applied in contemporary agricultural contexts

Grappling with Interpreting and Testing People–Landscape Dynamics

This chapter explores how human and natural dynamics of landscape change may be portrayed and tested using both geoarchaeological and GIS-based modelling approaches. Comprehensive sets of well-dated and spatially related archaeological, geoarchaeological, and palaeoenvironmental data are essential prerequisites. In addition to providing visualizations of possible realities, geoarchaeological investigations can ground-truth GIS-based landscape–human interaction models. Together these techniques can both help visualize and interrogate many possible scenarios of change, and allow consideration of other cause–effect relationships of landscape change. More detailed understandings of long-term human and potential future impacts on landscapes should be achievable, especially when coupled with precise environmental and climatic data. Nonetheless, modelling is no substitute for good sequences of palaeoenvironmental data in well understood, culturally shaped landscapes, but it is a valuable tool for aiding interpretation. A number of examples of this kind of application from around the world are presented.