Deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience in socio-ecological systems: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

As we stand on the precipice of unprecedented global challenges, understanding the deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience is no longer just a scholarly endeavour but imperative for the future of our planet and its inhabitants. The collection of papers in this special issue brings together archaeologists, historians, and environmental scientists around four main topics: (1) social-ecological modelling, (2) long-term human-environment interactions, (3) modelling diachronic landscapes and (4) sustainability and resilience from past to future. Our aims are to come to a better understanding of socio-economic resilience and sustainability in past, present and future societies. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, we aim to forge new conceptual frameworks for understanding complex, long-term socio-ecological dynamics. Through the case studies, theoretical reflections and methodological innovations presented here, this special issue seeks to advance interdisciplinary scholarship on sustainability and resilience and offer fresh insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in building a sustainable future.

Since the origins of the human species, we have been intricately intertwined with our environment. Ensuring survival required skilful navigation of the flux of environmental dynamics and societal transformations. Conversely, millennia of human habitation and land use have irreversibly altered the natural environment on a global scale (Ellis et al., 2021). As we stand on the precipice of unprecedented global challenges, understanding the deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience is no longer just a scholarly endeavour but imperative for the future of our planet and its inhabitants. The concept of ‘deep-time’ invokes a temporal scale that transcends human lifespans. It prompts us to look beyond the immediacy of our own experiences and consider the enduring legacies of past societies and ecosystems for our present and future. By examining the long-term trajectories of socio-ecological systems, we can discern recurring patterns, adaptive strategies and tipping points that have shaped the sustainability and resilience of human societies across millennia (Barton et al., 2012). Insights gleaned from historical societal responses to adversity could offer valuable directions for shaping sustainable approaches and tackling present and future obstacles (Riris et al., 2024).

This special issue reflects the outcomes of a multidisciplinary journey to unravel deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience in socio-ecological systems. Through the lenses of archaeology, anthropology, ecology, history, geography and other allied fields, we aim to delve into rich mosaics of human-environment interactions, seeking insights that can also inform contemporary sustainability efforts and enhance our capacity to build resilient societies for the future. The special issue is borne from a workshop organized in 2021 by the members of the interdisciplinary research group Sustainability and Resilience in Past and Present Populations (SuRP+), bringing together researchers from environmental sciences, biological sciences, social sciences and the humanities at KU Leuven (Belgium) between 2017 and 2021, to come to a better understanding of socioeconomic resilience and sustainability in past, present and future societies. Our goals were to explore socio-ecological systems in the past and use our knowledge of long-term system dynamics as a prism for interpreting contemporary and future socio-environmental issues.

While the usage of historical and archaeological data holds great potential through the elucidation of long-term patterns, it also carries a number of problems. Much of human history consists of interactions that leave little to no material traces. Moreover, historical and archaeological data is inherently fragmented due to uneven preservation (Barton et al., 2012; Perreault, 2019). Whatever data has been preserved is often subject to its own idiosyncratic properties and biases which makes it difficult to compare it with other types of data. This often results in marked differences in resolution, for example the chronological resolution of absolute dating techniques such as 14C dating and relative dating methods such as material culture typo-chronologies. In recent years, we have seen a notable increase in studies focusing on large-scale regional and diachronic human-environment interactions leveraging big data (e.g. Weiberg et al., 2019; see also (Middleton, 2024). This surge comes with a notable challenge: the expanding divergence between the wealth of available data and the depth of interpretations derived from them. The datasets essential for reconstructing human-environmental interactions exhibit variations in resolution, accuracy and sampling intensity, posing significant obstacles to straightforward synthesis. These problems are exacerbated by the lack of interdisciplinary training in both the historical and environmental sciences that allow multiple datasets to be integrated and interpreted (Izdebski et al., 2024). Even when clear patterns can be identified, it is not straightforward to extrapolate past dynamics towards present and future processes. In other words, there is a great need for better integration of data, ontologies and epistemologies of the historical and environmental sciences if we are to use past data for current and future policies.

To help address these issues, the collection of papers in this special issue brings together archaeologists, historians and environmental scientists around four main topics: (1) social-ecological modelling, (2) long-term human-environment interactions, (3) modelling diachronic landscapes and (4) sustainability and resilience from past to future. Through these topics, we aim to explore the potential of understanding long-term patterns of change in human-environment interactions. The various case studies form starting points to discuss challenges in data fragmentation, integration and extrapolation and provide outlines for how to facilitate interdisciplinary integration of ontologies and epistemologies in the historical and environmental sciences. Together, they form a kaleidoscope for how to use available archaeological, historical and paleo-environmental data for improving our understanding of sustainability and resilience in the past, present and future.

In the following sections of this special issue, contributors will explore a wide range of topics related to deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience in past and future socio-ecological systems. From the collapse and transformation of ancient societies to the resilience of indigenous communities, from the ecological footprint of prehistoric hunter-gatherers to the sustainability of urban societies, each article offers a unique perspective on the sometimes precarious balance between society and nature.

In the first paper, Barton et al. explore the dual concepts of risk and resilience in deep-time human-environment interactions. They explicitly link past, present and future in their assessment of risk and resilience by emphasizing how both concepts can only be assessed by looking at the past, yet are inherently future-oriented. Barton et al. point out that most risk assessment and resilience measures are taken based on datasets covering several decades, whereas the sustainability of ecosystems operate on much larger temporal scales. Their paper strongly advocates for the quintessential and unique role of archaeology in the broader field of resilience studies, on the condition that archaeologists embrace rigorous empirical hypothesis testing, employ advanced data analysis techniques and integrate computational tools such as geospatial technologies and simulation modelling.

Newton and colleagues stress the many challenges we face when studying long-term human ecodynamics, offering a novel perspective through the lens of ecosystem collapse, drawing from recent progress in conservation science, for understanding the causal relationships between social and ecological systems across spatio-temporal scales. Through the application of a long-term perspective onto four case studies, Newton and colleagues show a range of social responses to ecosystem collapse and concordant alterations in ecosystem flows. This study underscores the need for increased analysis of ecosystem collapse to clarify its influence on societal dynamics and to enhance the relevance of historical sciences to contemporary environmental challenges.

The paper of Fabian Becker and colleagues focuses on the ancient city of Pergamon (western Anatolia) and its periphery from c. 300 BCE to 300 CE. By applying the socio-ecological metabolism model they explore events of geomorphodynamics, which can be related to human activities in the city and human-environment interactions in its hinterland as part of the wider micro-region. This study shows the possibilities of the breadth and depth in data sources amassed through years of interdisciplinary research in the Classical world.

The study of Grau-Mira and colleagues identifies and analyses long-lasting settlement patterns and agricultural practices within the Perputxent Valley (Spain), offering the possibility of recognizing sustainable forms of socioeconomic organization. The research entails an explicit and extensive interdisciplinary approach that combines remote sensing, surface archaeological surveys, geo-archaeological analyses and ethno-historical studies.

Several papers look into the societal effects of climate change and explore how to interpret the possible correlations between climatic and archaeological/historical data. One such example is the paper by Çağlayan Bal and Evangelia Pişkin, who study the 4.2 ka BP climatic event, which caused drought in the eastern Mediterranean between c. 2200 and 1800 BCE. Bal and Pişkin compare the climatic proxies with a wide range of archaeological, zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data from western Anatolia to discern climatic effects on agriculture and husbandry in the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

The final two papers in the special issue are built on data derived from the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project. Three decades of interdisciplinary research at Sagalassos and its surrounding micro-region has provided an extensive amount of archaeological and environmental datasets which forms the basis of the modelling approaches presented here. Willet and colleagues combine archaeological predictive modelling with pollen-based environmental reconstructions, which provides more accurate and spatially explicit past land-cover estimates. The paper provides an important contribution through the presentation of new ways of data integration and extrapolation within human-environmental interaction research. Daems and Vandam present a way forward to operationalize the adaptive cycle framework, derived from resilience theory, and apply it on an archaeological case study of long-term socio-ecological dynamics from the Chalcolithic to the Byzantine period in southwest Turkey. The paper shows how the adaptive cycle can be used in a multi-level theoretical framework to explore underlying drivers of system change observed in empirical archaeological data.

In all of these explorations of deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience, we are confronted with fundamental questions that transcend disciplinary boundaries. What are the key drivers of sustainability and resilience in socio-ecological systems? What exactly is resilience and can we consider it as inherently good? How have human societies in the past managed environmental resources, mitigated risks and responded to crises? What lessons can we learn from ancient societies, indigenous knowledge systems and traditional practices that are relevant to contemporary sustainability challenges? How can interdisciplinary approaches enhance our understanding of complex socio-ecological dynamics and inform evidence-based policies for a sustainable future? And many more.

Answering these questions is no easy matter. Archaeologists and environmental scientists alike are increasingly turning to rigorous approaches built on advanced computational modelling and big data analysis to explore the vast record of the human past (see e.g. Riris et al., 2024). At the same time, exploring the intricate tapestry of human responses and social adaptations to ecological changes can only be done by incorporating the rich studies of past social life offered by history and the humanities. In other words, integrating ‘big’ and ‘thick’ data – as has become more common in the social sciences, see for example Bornakke and Due, 2018) – for the extraction of intelligible patterns from our datasets and their contextualization in meaningful interpretations.

Now more than ever, we need scientists to come together and bring both sides of the spectrum to the table. Interdisciplinary collaboration lies at the heart of our endeavour to unravel deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience. By bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines, we foster dialogue, exchange ideas and forge new conceptual frameworks for understanding complex, long-term socio-ecological dynamics. In doing so, we aim to overcome inherent challenges within interdisciplinary research such as finding shared terminology across disciplines. Through case studies, theoretical reflections and methodological innovations, this special issue seeks to advance interdisciplinary scholarship on sustainability and resilience, offering fresh insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Through the collective knowledge and wisdom of the contributions in this special issue, we hope to outline fruitful glimpses for how we can derive lessons from the past, engage with the complexities of the present, and envision a future where sustainability and resilience are not mere aspirations but lived realities for everyone on Earth.