Sustainability in Ancient Island Societies

An Archaeology of Human Resilience

Scott M. Fitzpatrick, Jon M. Erlandson, Kristina M. Gill

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780813069975
• eBook ISBN: 9780813073231
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Examining dynamic interactions between humans and island environments

This volume explores the impacts humans have made on island and coastal ecosystems and the ways these environments have adapted to anthropogenic changes over the course of millennia. Case studies highlight how island populations developed social and political strategies to effectively manage their ecosystems, ensuring the long-term survival of their societies and the persistence of their cultural traditions.

In case studies from islands in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic, contributors apply resilience theory, historical ecology, niche construction theory, and human behavioral ecology to foreground Indigenous resiliency and sustainability. Modern island and coastal societies face daunting challenges in the decades to come, including climate change, sea level rise, and the loss of habitable lands and heritage resources. Sustainability in Ancient Island Societies argues that the study of past human responses to such changes, especially practices rooted in Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge, can inform solutions to manage these threats today.

Contributors:  Rebecca Boger | Emira Ibrahimpasic | Frederique Valentin | Stuart Bedford | Davide Marco Zori | William Jeffery | Denise Elena | Edith Gonzalez | Mark Horrocks | Anaëlle Jallon | Sophia Perdikaris | Iarowoi Philip | Takaronga Kuautonga | Lindsey E. Cochran | Christopher Wolff | Todd Braje | Craig Shapiro | Allison Bain | Dr. Torben C. Rick | James Flexner | Tim Denham | Jon M. Erlandson | Robert Williams | Victor D. Thompson | Scott M. Fitzpatrick | Julie Field | Kristina M. Gill | Sandrine Grouard

 

A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson and Scott M. Fitzpatrick

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Islands of Resilience: Persistence, Adaptation, and Sustainability in Ancient Island Societies
• 2. Island of Hope: Archaeology, Historical Ecology, and Human Resilience on California’s Tuqan Island
• 3. Long-Term Perspectives on Sustainability, Resilience, and Change on the Island of Barbuda
• 4. Agricultural History, Deforestation, and Cultural Survival in the Highlands of New Guinea
• 5. Archaeology and the Emergence of Customary Resource Management in Southern Vanuatu
• 6. The Function of Prehistoric Agricultural Systems in Sāmoa: A GIS Analysis of Resilience to Flooding
• 7. Tidal Stone-Walled Fish Weirs across Asia-Pacific: An Austronesian Cultural Identity and Its Relevance in Marine Ecology Conservation
• 8. The Historical Ecology of Native American Sustainability on the Georgia Coast
• 9. Culture on the Rock(s): Maritime Archaic Resilience, Sustainability, and Abandonment on the Island of Newfoundland
• 10. Norse Persistence and Resilience in Iceland: Conservatism and Innovation on an Island of Oppositional Environmental Paradoxes
• 11. Island Engineers, Engineering Islands: Ancient Artificial Landforms, Sunk-Cost Economics, and the Rise of the Seasteading Phenomenon
• 12. Islands as Nodes of Human Resilience and Persistence
• List of Contributors
• Index