Towards a science of archaeoecology
- PMID: 36055892
- DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2022.07.010
Towards a science of archaeoecology
Abstract
We propose defining a field of research called 'archaeoecology' that examines the past ~60 000 years of interactions between humans and ecosystems to better understand the human place within them. Archaeoecology explicitly integrates questions, data, and approaches from archaeology and ecology, and coalesces recent and future studies that demonstrate the usefulness of integrating archaeological, environmental, and ecological data for understanding the past. Defining a subfield of archaeoecology, much as the related fields of environmental archaeology and palaeoecology have emerged as distinct areas of research, provides a clear intellectual context for helping us to understand the trajectory of human-ecosystem interactions in the past, during the present, and into the future.
Keywords: archaeoecology; archaeology; ecology; environmental archaeology; palaeoecology.
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of interests None declared by authors.
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