Archaeology and the climate crisis: how the past could save the future

"Archaeology bridges the gap, as it combines a scientific understanding with the cultural exploration of past human life."

Unsplash/Hulki Okan Tabak

Ask most people what archaeology is and you’ll get a mixture of responses involving fossils, funny hats, digging, and bones. It might surprise you to know that archaeology isn’t the tomb raiding that Indiana Jones made it out to be, and that there is much more to it than just finding old things. Even if you are in fact a keen amateur archaeologist, you may never have considered how studying the human past could help preserve its future.

Aside from accepting our fate or waiting for a technological breakthrough that radically alters the way we exist, we have two options in confronting the issue of climate change. The first is that we colonise a new planet. Without overlooking the imperialist undertones of this concept, some archaeologists have studied island colonisation in the past as a model for human exploration beyond our planet. Lessons from the past emphasise that this solution would still require us to adopt a much more sustainable way of life to avoid facing the same threats just a few centuries down the line.

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Archaeology and climate change

Climate policies should reflect the need to protect vulnerable archaeological sites and artefacts from climate change impacts.
Courtesy: Shahnaj Husne Jahan

Being born and brought up in Lalbag of Old Dhaka, I often find myself in the middle of a large, rapidly changing archaeological site by the Buriganga River. But as a climate change enthusiast, I never linked archaeology with climate change before. Participating in a webinar of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) recently, however, left me thinking about their connection.

Till the 1970s, it was mostly geologists and climatologists who talked about the changes in our climate. By the 1990s, it gradually turned into a broader environmental concern. And over the last couple of decades, it has become a development issue, if not an issue of survival of the humanity. In many countries, as in Bangladesh, climate change is still being dealt with by environment ministries. Climate change has recently been re-branded as "climate crisis" or "climate emergency". Thus, practically, it is no longer the sole responsibility of a specific ministry or agency to act upon.

Bangladesh has mainstreamed climate change superbly. Its 25 ministries and divisions, for example, are now receiving money to take climate actions. In the 2020-2021 budget, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Bangladesh allocated 7.55 percent of its budget (almost similar to the previous annual budget) to climate-related activities through those 25 agencies. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs or its Department of Archaeology, however, is not one of them.

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BAD OMEN World’s 1st cities COLLAPSED due to overpopulation and climate change 4,000 years ago, research shows

The ancient people of Mesopotamia built the world's first cities Credit: Alamy

The cities, now buried in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon in the ancient region of Mesopotamia, were also struck by plummeting temperatures.

Their inhabitants, an advanced people known as the Mesopotamians, were forced to either abandon their homes or starve to death, researchers write in the journal PLOS One.

Previous studies into the cities, which collapsed around 2100BC, have hinted that a well-documented change in climate was entirely to blame for their downfall.

Dan Lawrence, lead author of the new study and an associate professor in near-Eastern archaeology at Durham University, says otherwise.

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Reversal of Earth's magnetic poles may have triggered Neanderthal extinction -- and it could happen again

During this time, Earth's inhabitants would have been subjected to some dazzling displays -- northern and southern lights, caused by solar winds hitting the Earth's atmosphere, would have been frequent.

The reversal of Earth's magnetic poles, along with a temporary breakdown of the world's magnetic field about 42,000 years ago, could have triggered a raft of environmental changes, solar storms and the extinction of the Neanderthals, according to a new study.

The Earth's magnetic field protects us, acting as a shield against the solar wind (a stream of charged particles and radiation) that flows out from the sun. But the geomagnetic field is not stable in strength and direction, and it has the ability to flip or reverse itself.

Some 42,000 years ago, in an event known as the Laschamp Excursion, the poles did just that for around 800 years, before swapping back -- but scientists were unsure exactly how or if it impacted the world. 

Now, a team of researchers from Sydney's University of New South Wales and the South Australian Museum say the flip, along with changing solar winds, could have triggered an array of dramatic climate shifts leading to environmental change and mass extinctions.

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Europe’s Bronze Age Farmers Adapted to Drought Conditions

(© Archeodunum SA)

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND—According to a statement released by the University of Geneva, a team of scientists led by Alessandra Varalli of Spain’s Pompeu Fabra University has analyzed the biochemical composition of plant remains and the collagen in human and animal bones discovered at Bronze Age sites in western Switzerland and southeastern France. The study suggests that between 2200 and 800 B.C., the people of the region ate mostly plants and land animals, despite the presence of nearby lakes and rivers. The amount of nitrogen in the plant remains indicates that the use of manure as a crop fertilizer became widespread.

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Climate Change In Antiquity: Mass Emigration Due To Water Scarcity

Buried forever by the desert: ruins of Soknopaiou Nesos, a village in the Fayum region

of Egypt that was lost in late antiquity [Credit: Bruno Bazzani/WikiCommons]

The absence of monsoon rains at the source of the Nile was the cause of migrations and the demise of entire settlements in the late Roman province of Egypt. This demographic development has been compared with environmental data for the first time by professor of ancient history, Sabine Huebner of the University of Basel - leading to a discovery of climate change and its consequences.

The oasis-like Faiyum region, roughly 130 km south-west of Cairo, was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. Yet at the end of the third century CE, numerous formerly thriving settlements there declined and were ultimately abandoned by their inhabitants. Previous excavations and contemporary papyri have shown that problems with field irrigation were the cause. Attempts by local farmers to adapt to the dryness and desertification of the farmland - for example, by changing their agricultural practices - are also documented.

Volcanic eruption and monsoon rains

Basel professor of ancient history Sabine R. Huebner has now shown in the journal Studies in Late Antiquity that changing environmental conditions were behind this development. Existing climate data indicates that the monsoon rains at the headwaters of the Nile in the Ethiopian Highlands suddenly and permanently weakened. The result was lower high-water levels of the river in summer. Evidence supporting this has been found in geological sediment from the Nile Delta, Faiyum and the Ethiopian Highlands, which provides long-term climate data on the monsoons and the water level of the Nile.

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A Viking Archaeologist Shares 6 of the Most Fascinating Finds From a Slew of Recent Discoveries Made in Melting Ice

Archaeologists working to discovered Viking artifacts uncovered by ice melt at the Lendbreen ice patch. Photo courtesy of Secrets of the Ice.

Global warming has unlocked hundreds of Viking artifacts from the ice of the Norwegian mountains in recent years.

In November, archaeologists from the Secret of the Ice project, part of Norway’s Glacier Archaeology Program, discovered 68 arrows spanning a period of 6,000 years—a record for any frozen archaeological site—on the Langfonne ice patch, an ancient Viking hunting ground.

A few months earlier, scientists announced discoveries that had been frozen in the rapidly melting Lendbreen ice patch, which was once part of a Viking trade route.

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