‘Archaeology of climate change’ aims to help plan response to environmental emergency

How ancient human reactions to upheavals such as the end of the ice age, could inform our future and strategy

The global climate crisis of today has one key driver – anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions – but humans have grappled with various forms of climate change numerous times in the short period we have existed on Earth.

As we examine how to mitigate the worst impacts of our current climate-altering behaviour, scientists are looking at how the past can inform our response to living in a rapidly heating world.

New research by an international team of anthropologists, geographers and earth scientists from Canada, the US and France, makes the case for a new discipline they call “the archaeology of climate change”.

This interdisciplinary approach to climate science uses data from archaeological digs and the paleoclimate record (the study of past climates), to study how humans have interacted and adapted – or failed to adapt – to changing climates, such as the warming which followed the end of the last ice age, around 13,000 years ago.

The scientists hope their collaborative work will reveal more about climate tipping points – in this sense, the upheavals wrought by the environment which forced people to reorganise their societies to survive.

“The archaeology of climate change combines the study of environmental conditions and archaeological information,” said Université de Montréal anthropologist Professor Ariane Burke, who is leading the research.

“What this approach allows us to do is identify the range of challenges faced by people in the past, the different strategies they used to face these challenges and ultimately, whether they succeeded or not.”

For instance, studying the rapid warming that occurred between 14,700 and 12,700 years ago, and how humans coped with it as evidenced in the archeological record, can help climate specialists model possible outcomes of climate change in the future, Professor Burke said.

The researchers said historically, people from different walks of life have found a variety of ways to adapt to the warming of their climate, and these can inform the present and help prepare for the future.

For example, traditional farming practices – many of which are still practiced today – are valid alternatives that can be used to redesign industrial farming, making it more sustainable in the future, they suggested.

The research team said indigenous cultures have a major role to play in teaching us how to respond to the climate crisis.

In the Canadian Arctic, for instance, indigenous people have a detailed knowledge of the environment which could help lawmakers plan sustainable responses to the crisis.

“Similarly, indigenous farmers all over the world cultivate a wide variety of crop types that won’t all respond to changing climate conditions in the same way,” Professor Burke said.

“They are preserving crop diversity in the global food chain and if and when the main crop types we currently rely on fail, this diversity could well prove to be a lifeline,” she said.

Another example is the readoption in northeastern North America of multi-cropping agriculture based on the “three sisters”: corn, squash and beans.

“There are archeological models for that," said Professor Burke. “The point is to use them to come up with more sustainable, locally scaled ways of farming that will ensure food security in the years to come.”

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.