Title: Sustainable lifeways : cultural persistence in an ever-changing environment /
Authors: Miller, Naomi Frances.; Moore, Katherine M.; Ryan, Kathleen.
Publisher: Published for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology by the University of Pennsylvania Press,
Year: 2011
Subjects: Sustainable living Cross-cultural studies Congresses.
Abstract: All organisms and species respond to risk in their environment. Regardless of the source of risk, societies, ancient and modern, have to deal with it on several time scales: annual and interannual variability in weather, pests, and other short-term risks; the longer-term changes in climate, soil conditions, and vegetation cover that can be perceived and recorded in generational time; and the even longer-term changes in environmental conditions that are least likely to be recognized by social groups, yet have a material effect on their ability to persist. By their collective actions, societies can mitigate or exacerbate immediate and long-term risk in their environment.
Contents: Introduction: Sustainable lifeways / Naomi F. Miller, Katherine M. Moore -- "Living with a moving target": long-term climatic variability and environmental risk in dryland regions / Neil Roberts -- Prehistoric pastoralists and social responses to climatic risk in east Africa / Fiona Marshall, Katherine Grillo, Lee Arco -- Spreading risk in risky environments: an East African example / Kathleen Ryan, Karega-Munene -- Risk and resilience among contemporary pastoralists in southwestern Iran / Lois Beck, Julia Huang -- Change and stability in an uncertain environment: foraging strategies in the levant from the early Natufian through the beginning of the pre-pottery neolithic b / Arlene M. Rosen -- Explaining the structure and timing of formation of pueblo I villages in the northern U.S. southwest / Timothy A. Kohler, Charles Reed -- Mitigating environmental risk in the US. Southwest / Katherine A. Spielmann [and others] -- Farmers' experience and knowledge: utilizing soil diversity to mitigate rainfall variability on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia / Maria C. Bruno -- Grace under pressure: responses to changing environments by herders and fishers in the formative Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia / Katherine M. Moore -- Periodic volcanism, persistent landscapes, and the archaeofaunal record in the Jama Valley of western Ecuador / Peter W. Stahl -- Managing predictable unpredictability: agricultural sustainability at Gordion, Turkey / Naomi F. Miller.