Anthropology

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2211

Browse

Author: search.filters.author.Hambrecht, GeorgeStart date: 2010

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The First European Colonization of the North Atlantic
    (Springer, 2015) Hambrecht, George
    Many facets of what are commonly considered to be novel and unique characteristics of modern Capitalism have their roots, often in a mature form, in the Medieval Period (Abu-Lughod 1991; Crosby 2004; Hoffmann 2001; Marks 2007). Archaeological work focusing on the Norse North Atlantic from the Early Medieval Period through to the Early Modern Period has been especially effective at revealing certain of these phenomena, specifically those dealing with the commoditization of natural resources and the influence of global markets on colonization. The early medieval colonial expansion of the Norse and the subsequent centuries of interaction with the medieval world system anticipate the central place that international global markets had on the formation of the post-Columbian world. This essay will discuss the North Atlantic Norse colonies, specifically the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. For the purposes of this volume, this discussion is offered as a counter-point to the discussions of the post-Columbian colonial efforts of the Europeans in the Americas. The intention is to use the medieval Scandinavian colonial migration to problematize the larger discussion on the nature of colonies, colonialism, and the emergence of capitalism.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    International Approaches to Climate Change and Cultural Heritage
    (American Antiquity, 2017) Hambrecht, George; Rockman, Marcy
    Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening cultural heritage; cultural resource managers, communities, and archaeologists are confronting this reality. Yet the phenomenon is happening over such a wide range of physical and sociocultural contexts that it is a problem that is too big for any one organization or discipline to tackle. Therefore the sharing of best practices and examples between the communities dealing with this problem is essential. This article presents examples from communities, cultural resource managers, and archaeologists who are engaging with climate change based threats to cultural heritage. Our presentation of these international activities follows the US National Park Service (NPS) four-pillar approach to climate change threats to cultural heritage, which is that there are four primary components to climate change response: science, mitigation, adaptation, and communication. We discuss this approach and then present a number of cases in which communities or institutions are attempting to manage cultural heritage threatened by climate change through these four pillars. This article restricts itself to examples that are taking place outside of the USA and concludes with some general recommendations for both archaeologists and funding entities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Archaeological Sites as Distributed Long-term Observing Networks of the Past (DONOP)
    (Quaternary International, 2018) Hambrecht, George; Anderung, Cecillia; Brewington, Seth; Dugmore, Andrew; Edvardsson, Ragnar; Feeley, Francis; Gibbons, Kevin; Harrison, Ramona; Hicks, Megan; Jackson, Rowan; Olafsdóttir, Guðbjörg Asta; Rockman, Marcy; Smiarowski, Konrad; Streeter, Richard; Szabo, Vicki; McGovern, Thomas
    Archaeological records provide a unique source of direct data on long-term human-environment interactions and samples of ecosystems affected by differing degrees of human impact. Distributed long-term datasets from archaeological sites provide a significant contribution to establish local, regional, and continental-scale environmental baselines and can be used to understand the implications of human decision-making and its impacts on the environment and the resources it provides for human use. Deeper temporal environmental baselines are essential for resource and environmental managers to restore biodiversity and build resilience in depleted ecosystems. Human actions are likely to have impacts that reorganize ecosystem structures by reducing diversity through processes such as niche construction. This makes data from archaeological sites key assets for the management of contemporary and future climate change scenarios because they combine information about human behavior, environmental baselines, and biological systems. Sites of this kind collectively form Distributed Long-term Observing Networks of the Past (DONOP), allowing human behavior and environmental impacts to be assessed over space and time. Behavioral perspectives are gained from direct evidence of human actions in response to environmental opportunities and change. Baseline perspectives are gained from data on species, landforms, and ecology over timescales that long predate our typically recent datasets that only record systems already disturbed by people. And biological perspectives can provide essential data for modern managers wanting to understand and utilize past diversity (i.e., trophic and/or genetic) as a way of revealing, and potentially correcting, weaknesses in our contemporary wild and domestic animal populations.