Archaeology, environmental justice, and climate change on islands of the Caribbean and southwestern Indian Ocean

Abstract

Climate change impacts island communities all over the world. Sea-level rise, an increase in the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, and changes in distribution and health of marine organisms are among the most significant processes affecting island communities worldwide. On islands of the Caribbean and southwestern Indian Ocean (SWIO), however, today’s climate change impacts are magnified by historical environmental injustice and colonial legacies, which have heightened the vulnerability of human and other biotic communities. For some islands, archaeological and paleoecological research offers an important record of precolonial climate change and its interplay with human lives and landscapes. The archaeological record suggests strategies and mechanisms that can inform discussions of resilience in the face of climate change. We detail climate-related challenges facing island Caribbean and SWIO communities using archaeological and paleoecological evidence for past climate change and human response and argue that these cannot be successfully addressed without an understanding of the processes that have, over time, disrupted livelihoods, reshaped land- and seascapes, threatened intergenerational ecological knowledge transfer, and led to increased inequality and climate vulnerability.

Archaeology, climate, and global change in the Age of Humans

“…Collectively, these and other studies demonstrate that archaeological sites represent a series of observation networks about changing environmental conditions and human activities through time (Distributed Long-term Observing Networks of the Past), with much potential to address modern environmental challenges (24). This PNAS special feature brings together six globally distributed papers that demonstrate the value of archaeology within transdisciplinary research programs focused on integrating perspectives on past, present, and future climate change and related environmental challenges (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30). These papers demonstrate cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on archaeology, climate change, and other global environmental challenges, emphasizing how archaeology provides information of value to science and society in an era of global change, while, at the same time, sounding warning bells about the ongoing destruction of this critical record ( Fig.…”

“…Many of the papers in this special feature focus on human ecodynamics during the Holocene (25)(26)(27) and/or reconstruct past climate regimes from archaeological data (27). These studies recognize that climatic and environmental change do not explain all aspects of change in human organization, behavior, demography, or distribution, but each one provides examples in which people responded to changing conditions.…”

“…One of the common adaptive responses to climatic change by ancient peoples was high mobility linked to low population densities and foraging and/or pastoral lifeways; examples in these papers include Madagascar (25) and northern Arabia (26). As many of the authors point out, dense, urbanized global populations preclude the kind of mobility documented earlier in the Holocene.…”

“…Using the Past to Look to the Future Increasingly, archaeologists look to the future, drawing on the unparalleled long-term record of human−environmental interactions to provide context and guidance for future environmental conditions, scenarios, and planning. The papers in this special feature illustrate some of the best examples of this research, providing regional and global examples of past human response to or influence on environmental change from the Arabian deserts to Africa, the Caribbean, Peru, Australia, and the United States of America (25)(26)(27). They also demonstrate the value of using existing archaeological collections and building new collections for future research of societal significance, an endeavor that is highly ethical but difficult to fund (29).…”

Haitian Archaeological Heritage: Understanding Its Loss and Paths to Future Preservation

“…Scholars address the challenges of protecting cultural heritage sites by focusing on laws and regulations [13]. The Caribbean's exposure to natural disasters (climate change, sea-level rise, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions) make its cultural heritage more and more vulnerable [10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Haiti's archaeological heritage is among the most threatened in the region due to the country's many chronic political, economic, and environmental problems [26][27][28][29].…”