Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean

Abstract

International audienceThis paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past (“palaeoenvironmental sciences”), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia

Carbon Neutral by 2021: The Past and Present of Costa Rica’s Unusual Political Tradition

“…In addition, political narratives can be merged with existing paleoenvironmental research i.e., [3][4][5] to understand nations' human-environment interactions over long periods of time. In short, future research could benefit from integrating insights from across diverse fields to better understand how humans and landscapes influence each other over time, as some researchers have started to do [64,65].…”

Special issue of Geoarchaeology: Urban geoarchaeology in the Mediterranean Basin

“…With the emergence of cities, urban development forced a transformation from the preexisting natural environment to an urban environment characterized by its own rules (Kaniewski et al., ). This history of separate scientific approaches to studying the past has often led to oversimplified interpretations of processes tied to landscape change, societal development, and their overlap (Izdebski et al., ) vis á vis the evolution of cities. In particular, there is still a tendency for authors from the natural sciences to emphasize the role of the environment while historians or archaeologists tend to highlight societal factors (Holmgren et al., ).…”

Mediterranean archeology and environmental histories in the spotlight of the Anthropocene

“…Increasingly, studies of human‐climatic pasts have set out to eschew disciplinary boundaries in order to integrate scientific, archeological, and historical evidence (e.g., Izdebski et al, ; McCormick et al, ; Crumley, ). In particular, physical archives of paleoclimate—in trees, soils, pollen, and ice cores—have been compared with documentary texts and material evidence in order to study societal interactions with climate systems.…”