A02 Human & Environment

Diachronic Studies of Entanglement and Enchainment between Environment and Humans through Interdisciplinary Fieldworks across the Pan-Pacific (Human & Environment Group)

The concept of the "Anthropocene," which holds that no environment has been completely untouched by humans since the Industrial Revolution, has attracted widespread attention as a postmodern perspective that dissolves the dichotomous boundary between nature and humans. For archaeologists, who often experience in practice the difficulty of classifying excavated artifacts and soil layers as either natural or human, this idea should not be so new. Nevertheless, we have not actively demonstrated the academic validity of overcoming this dichotomy. Herein lies the core challenge of our group (A2). How can we approach to entanglement of two agencies, nature and humans? To explore the art of inquiry we try to link geoscience and cultural anthropology/history through archaeology in three practical fields in the pan-Pacific region consisting of Oceania, South America and Japan.

We focus on the concept of “novel ecosystem”, a theme of the Anthropocene that discusses the adaptation/maladaptation of species in the face of ecological upheaval. Humans have also been affected by anthropogenic destruction as well as natural disasters and have enchained by social networks by sharing their lives in novel environments. We pursue case studies to approach this human-environment entanglement, focusing on examples on Holocene climate change, migration to uninhabited islands, innovation in ironworking, or social and ecological change in the colonial period. Our goal is to refine the methods of geoarchaeology and ethnoarchaeology/historical archaeology, and to combine both.