Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of archaeological research Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 257 - 307
Main Author Middleton, Guy D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Boston Springer Science + Business Media 01.09.2012
Springer US
Subjects
Anthropology
Archaeological paradigms
Archaeological theory
Archaeology
Bronze age
Climate change
Determinism
Disasters
Discourse
Earthquakes
Ecological sustainability
Environment
Environmental archaeology
Historical archaeology
Humans
Narratives
Paleoclimatology
Social Sciences
Society
Collapse
Environment
Determinism
Narrative
Resilience
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Summary:The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition of the dynamic role of social processes that lie at the heart of human communities. These environmental discourses, together with confusion over terminology and the concepts of collapse, have created widespread aporia about collapse and resulted in the creation of mixed messages about complex historical and social processes.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:1059-0161
1573-7756
DOI:10.1007/s10814-011-9054-1