Applying Archaeology to Today's World

Archaeology is the study of the human past. While a better understanding of our past is a pretty interesting and worthwhile objective in its own right, that, sadly, is not necessarily enough on its own to justify funding amongst increasingly heated competition for the research dollar!

Are there benefits of archaeology beyond satisfying that universal human trait: curiosity? Curiosity about the origins of our species and the origins of the diversity of human societies.

One of the more obvious benefits is generating tourism. Certainly, there are a number of archaeological sites around the world that are huge tourist drawcards, creating significant spinoffs for the local economies:

   

Clockwise from top left: The Colosseum (Rome); The Great Pyramid and Sphinx at Giza (Egypt); Angkor Wat (Cambodia); and Machu Picchu (Peru) are all significant tourist drawcards for their respective countries. Follow links for image sources. 

A less appreciated benefit of archaeology is the potential contribution it can make to an understanding of contemporary issues and problems. A good example of this is a recent article I found on The Guardian website entitled "What the collapse of ancient capitals can teach us about the cities of today". The article draws a number of parallels between ancient and modern cities. The following is an excerpt from the article:  

In the ancient world, low-density cities were prone to episodes of collapse. But back then, only a minuscule fraction of the world’s population lived in cities. According to [Roland] Fletcher [Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sydney, Australia]: “It’s now generally reckoned that 50% of humankind lives in cities, a lot of which are relatively low density. In less than 200 years we’ve created a physical situation for millions and millions of human beings that has never existed before. It’s completely unprecedented. We should probably take a fairly hard look at it.”

Tikal [Guatemala], Angkor [Cambodia] and Anuradhapura [Sri Lanka] ... were very different cities in their geography, environment and social and political functioning. But, Fletcher points out, they all had operational similarities: extensive land clearance, sprawling low-density settlement patterns, massive infrastructure – all of which are attributes of modern cities. The extended infrastructure of Angkor and Tikal proved vulnerable to a changing climate, something else that may be upon us.

“Whatever the cause of climate change, we’re in it,” says Fletcher. “And this fluctuation is getting serious.” He points out that events like the flooding of New Orleans have resonances with Angkor: “Both cities had developed a fantastic method of managing water. But if the impact that comes is outside the parameters of the system, you’re in trouble.”

Perhaps some lessons there to be heeded?

The full article can be found here.

In future posts I hope to highlight additional examples of the application of archaeological research to contemporary issues.

Thanks for reading,

Nick.