What and whom can Archaeology serve? If archaeologists are so focused on the past, can they help people today and in the future?
This lecture addresses these two questions by describing Meredith Chesson and her team's archaeological documentation of the built environment and material culture in the San Pasquale Valley (SPQV) where farmers have been growing bergamot and mulberries (for silk worms) commercially for export, as well as a wide variety of crops and herds for local exchange and consumption over the last 200 years. Utilizing both ethnographic and archaeological methods, this project explores how people succeed and fail to sustain livelihoods and communities. They have found that their cross-disciplinary approach offers insights into rhythms and nuances of linkages between the SPQV's environment, economy, and social worlds, and that it requires a more flexible conceptualization of sustainability to encompass the variety of solutions developed by current SPQV community members to craft sustainable economic and social futures for themselves.
This is a brown bag event. All are welcome!
Originally published at anthropology.nd.edu.