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Thursday 26 May 2016

Realising consilience: How better communication between archaeologists, historians and natural scientists can transform the study of past climate change in the Mediterranean (Article)

Volume 136, March 15, 2016, Pages 5-22



Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Institute of History, Gołebia 13, Kraków, Poland
















Abstract

This paper reviews the methodological and practical issues relevant to the ways in which natural scientists, historians and archaeologists may collaborate in the study of past climatic changes in the Mediterranean basin. We begin by discussing the methodologies of these three disciplines in the context of the consilience debate, that is, attempts to unify different research methodologies that address similar problems. We demonstrate that there are a number of similarities in the fundamental methodology between history, archaeology, and the natural sciences that deal with the past ("palaeoenvironmental sciences"), due to their common interest in studying societal and environmental phenomena that no longer exist. The three research traditions, for instance, employ specific narrative structures as a means of communicating research results. We thus present and compare the narratives characteristic of each discipline; in order to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary exchange, we must first understand how each deals with the societal impacts of climatic change. In the second part of the paper, we focus our discussion on the four major practical issues that hinder communication between the three disciplines. These include terminological misunderstandings, problems relevant to project design, divergences in publication cultures, and differing views on the impact of research. Among other recommendations, we suggest that scholars from the three disciplines should aim to create a joint publication culture, which should also appeal to a wider public, both inside and outside of academia. © 2015 The Authors.

Author keywords

Archaeology; Climate change; Consilience; History; Interdisciplinary collaboration; Mediterranean; Natural sciences; Palaeoecology

Indexed keywords

Engineering controlled terms: History; Natural sciences
Archaeology; Consilience; Interdisciplinary collaborations; Mediterranean; Palaeoecology
Engineering main heading: Climate change
ISSN: 02773791 CODEN: QSREDSource Type: Journal Original language: English
DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.10.038Document Type: Article
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd

  Izdebski, A.; Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Institute of History, Gołebia 13, Poland; email:adam.izdebski@fundusz.org
© Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.