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Environmental
Environmental approaches in archaeology seek to understand peoples interaction with, and use of, the natural
environment in the past. Exploitation of plants and animals, changing vegetation or forest cover, agriculture and
river/sea resources are all important factors.
The natural living environment (sometimes called the biosphere) is the greatest and most diverse physical resource
available to humans. People have been very effective at modifying and enhancing the natural environment for their
own benefit - this might include planting crops, clearing forests or domesticating animal species. Many aspects of
the natural environment, such as water and certain plants and animals, had spiritual as well as practical meaning
to people in the past. They lived their lives within, and as part of, their surrounding ecosystems. Sometimes
ecosystems went into crisis or even collapsed - possibly as a result of climate change or over-exploitation of one
type of resource.
Environmental Archaeology is dedicated to studying these aspects of human life in the past. There are several
branches of environmental archaeology - including zooarchaeology, archaeobotany and pollen analysis. Most
environmental archaeological data comes from excavations or auger cores. Larger material, such as animal bones or
skeletons, can be excavated by hand using normal techniques. However, the vast majority of environmental data is
very small - even microscopic. To retrieve this, samples of soil (each from a single, separate context) are taken
and put through a floatation process which removes the bulk soil content and sieves out environmental material.
Seeds, burnt grain, fruit stones, fragments of bone, snail shells, insect or beetle remains (coloeoptera),
fragments of wood, hair, leather, even in some cases textiles or concreted human excreta (coprolite) - are then
analysed by specialists. These can tell us a huge amount about the lives of the people in the past, what their
landscape may have looked like, and how they exploited the available environmental resources.
Learn more:
- J. Evans and T. O'Connor, Environmental Archaeology, Principles and Method, Sutton, Stroud, 2001.
- D.F. Dinacauze, Environmental Archaeology, Principles and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Learn more about Pollen Analysis, Archaeobotany,
Zooarchaeology, Soil Micromorphology,
or return to Evidence.
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