Book examines archaeological record of human impact on environments
March 11, 2023 - Mary Beth King
The extent of human impact on world environments is undeniable. At scales ranging from local to global, investigations continue to demonstrate that the ecosystems to which we currently belong are structured by human behavior. Catastrophic events such as war, disaster, disease, or economic decay have, at various times throughout history, led to the human abandonment of particular environments.
What happens to a human-structured environment when the manner in which people use it abruptly changes? In Questioning Rebound, authors Emily Lena Jones, professor of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico, and Jacob L. Fisher, professor of Anthropology at California State University, Sacramento, explore the archaeological record of the Americas during the period immediately following European contact, a time when the human footprint on the land abruptly shifted. During this era of disease-driven mortality, genocide, incarceration, and forced labor of Indigenous peoples, American landscapes changed in fundamental ways, producing short-lived ecosystems that later became the basis of myths regarding the natural state of environments across the Americas.
Read more at UNM Newsroom.
