27th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists will be held in Germany between 8-11 september 2021.

Read more about the sessions by and with NIKU researchers:

Session: #97

Theme:

2. Pandemics and climate change: responses to global challenges

Session format: Regular session

Title: Redrawing Lines in the Sand: New Archaeological Approaches to Addressing Climate Impacts [CCH]

Content:

The pandemic and the global response has brought modern society’s resilience and capacity to change into sharp focus and forced us to confront our ability to respond effectively – or not – to such global crises. Modern climate change poses an even greater and more fundamental challenge. It is already affecting our society with far ranging impacts. These can be mild, such as people having to alter commutes due to heavy rains, or severe, such as entire communities forced to move permanently or at least evacuate temporarily. Climate change is radically altering cultural heritage as well. Impacts to historic properties and archaeological sites are destroying legacies of communities across the globe, and these impacts will worsen as temperatures and sea levels rise.

This session aims to reflect on how archaeology as a sector can adapt to these challenges and contribute to a wider societal response. It will examine how archaeologists can adjust our approaches and embrace innovative techniques to help us more effectively respond to increasingly urgent climate driven threats. This session will invite papers which consider issues such as prioritisation in the face of unstoppable loss, how to ensure representation of a diversity of voices in assessing the significance of heritage, and the development of pro-active approaches to address the threat of loss.

Keywords: climate change impacts, heritage prioritisation, global crises response

Session associated with other: CHH – Climate Change and Heritage

Main organiser:

Vibeke Vandrup Martens (Norway) 1

Co-organisers:

Sara Ayers-Rigsby (United States) 2
Elinor Graham (United Kingdom) 3

Affiliations:

1. NIKU – Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research
2. Florida Public Archaeology Network, Florida Atlantic University Anthropology Department
3. Department of Archaeology, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen

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Session: #355

 

Theme: 1. Widening horizons through human-environment interconnections

Session format: Discussion session (with formal abstracts)

Title: Community Archaeology and Climate Threat Response

Content:

Climate changes pose a worldwide threat to the archaeological record and the heritage of local and global communities. Experience gained by climate change response initiatives thus far have underlined the key role of community-based archaeology in mobilizing and providing effective response to the dire challenges we now face. In multiple world areas, from Caribbean to Greenland, archaeologists (many indigenous) and local communities have formed partnerships to assess, prioritize, record, and rescue rapidly disappearing science and heritage.

The growing realization that archaeological deposits represent a “distributed observing network of the past” of great value to modern resource managers and sustainability planners is increasingly tied to the recognition of deep local expertise in resource management and sustainable commons management. Partnerships across communities of knowledge are being enhanced and accelerated by innovative applications of new technology and techniques, and formal inclusion of professional digital media producers to create new tools for recording and wider communication of results are now becoming widespread. We are learning new ways of co-producing knowledge while mobilizing in the face of climate threats.

This session will bring together projects and practitioners from multiple teams and communities and will work to share ideas and best practice approaches while connecting broadly across world regions. This session is sponsored by the Integrated History and Future of Humans on Earth (IHOPE) program and draws upon expertise from SAA and EAA climate impact communities.

Keywords: Community Archaeology, IHOPE Threats to Archaeology and Heritage, Climate Response, Local and Traditional Knowledge, Climate Change impacts

Session associated with other:

IHOPE and SAA Climate Change Strategies and the Archaeological Record Committee

Main organiser:

Thomas McGovern (United States) 1

Co-organisers:

Thomas Dawson (United Kingdom) 2

Affiliations:

1. CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College
2. School of History U St Andrews Scotland

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 Session: #472

 

Theme: 2. Pandemics and climate change: responses to global challenges

Session format: Round table (without formal abstracts, only list of confirmed discussants / session co-organisers to be provided)

Title: EAA Community Climate Change and Heritage’ (CCH) Roundtable

Content:

Archaeology and cultural heritage are central to both human understanding and management of crises such as pandemics or climate change. Interdisciplinary research on responses of previous societies to similar crises can help us to develop resilience, mitigation and adaptation strategies to tackle these global big challenges at the beginning of 21st century.

This fifth roundtable organized by the EAA Community Climate Change and Heritage (CCH) builds on the success of the previous ones and hopes to focus further on: (1) Internationalization, (2) Prioritization, (3) Strategies, and (4) Policies.
We will also invite representatives of key archaeology associations such as the AAA (Elizabeth Chilton), AIA (Ben Thomas), SAA (Anne Jensen) and WAC (Koji Mizoguchi) as well as specialists in climate change and heritage research as a sounding board for the CCH activities as well as opinion leaders in methods and practice of climate change and heritage research. In addition, the roundtable session will provide an update on the work done in and by the community since the previous meeting and discuss next steps for the Community to grow and extends its network and activities in a COVID-19 environment.

Keywords: Heritage, Climate Change, Prioritization, Adaptation, Policy, Research

Main organiser:

Peter F Biehl (United States) 1

Co-organisers:

Elin Dalen (Norway) 2
Vibeke Vandrup Martens (Norway) 3

Affiliations:

1. University at Buffalo, SUNY
2. Directorate of Cultural Heritage (RA)
3. Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)

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Session: #111

Theme: 5. Assembling archaeological theory and the archaeological sciences

Title: Preserving Transformative ‘Palimpsests’: The Role of Digital Heritage and Participative Approaches in Current Urban Archaeology

Content:

Towns and cities are complex, densely populated settlements that are in constant transformation. However, many of the strategies undertaken to conserve and disseminate the value of heritage sites within present-day cities does not value transformation. Differently, they tend to prioritize certain historical periods whilst others remain overlooked. This results in the discontinuity of historical layers and the loss of integrative dialogues and descriptions of day-to-day life.

We argue that cities as archaeological palimpsests are ‘deep cities’ – the depth of which needs to be explored, identified and promoted in a participatory and socially inclusive manner (JPI ‘Deep Cities’ project www.deepcities.eu). This session will search for more socially inclusive forms of preservation and management of urban heritage. By exploring new participative methods to preserve urban multi-temporal palimpsests, as theoretical approach to understand temporality in a relative manner (Lucas 2005). Under the concept of deep cities, we aim to broaden the understanding of historical continuity through the layers of social values and multivocal narratives.

We are looking for conceptual frameworks and empirical case studies that draw on digital tools, co-production and archaeological research. The narratives that can arise from this debate and how they can be integrated into the objectives of a broader social archaeology, could also be discussed.

In short, this session will address key questions including but are not limited to:

● How are current archaeological practices embedded in urban transformations?
● What is the role of heritage management professionals and archaeologists in valuing social dimensions in heritage conservation within constantly changing urban contexts?
● How can participatory, people-centred, and digital approaches contribute to the ongoing transformation of deep cities? What new sustainable futures can open up for our cultural heritage?

Main organiser:
Torgrim Guttormsen (Norway) 1

Co-organisers:
Ana Pastor Perez (Spain) 2
Paloma Guzman (Norway) 3
Kalliopi Fouseki (United Kingdom) 4
Chiara Bonacchi (United Kingdom) 5

Affiliations:
1. Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. NIKU
2. University of Barcelona
3. Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. NIKU.
4. UCL (University College London) Institute for Sustainable Heritage
5. University of Stirling

 

Session: #327

Title: Engendering Public Archaeology

Since Public Archaeology examines the role and impact of archaeological activity in a wider social, economic and political aspects, this session would like to add a gender perspective to this examination. Public Archaeology focuses both on how the discipline engages the public in archaeological matters, both research and interpretation of heritage, and on how the public uses archaeological heritage for social, political, educational, and cultural matters.

This session aims to explore the inclusion of a gender perspective to this reciprocal relationship, in both theoretical and practical terms. We look for contributions that examine gender politics, roles, norms, and stereotypes present openly and subtlety in the practice of public archaeology. But also, contributions that explore these within the theory of practicing public archaeology, and in the practice of theorizing about public archaeology.

The session aims thus to engage in the debate of gender values and attitudes attached to archaeological practice for the public, and how these engendered practices and discourses are transferred accepted, maintained, negotiated, and contested by society. Therefore, we envision this session as a meeting place to discuss theoretical approaches and practical experiences focused on gender and feminist perspectives.

Areas of interest for this session on gender/feminism in public archaeology include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Public engagement activities in archaeology/heritage.
• Collaborative practices and digital networking.
• Results of scientific research and the impact of archaeology in the media/social media.
• Participatory and engendering archaeology/heritage projects.
• Gender perspectives in community heritage/archaeology.
• Gender perspectives in archaeological museum and heritage management.
• School/university curriculums and educational practice of archaeology.
• Gender perspectives in teaching public archaeology at university level.
• Professional and academic cultures.

 

Keywords: Public Archaeology, Heritage, Gender perspective, Feminism

Organisers:

Clara Masriera-Esquerra (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona/ Universitat de Barcelona)

Paloma González-Marcén (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Marta Díaz-Zorita Bonilla (Eberhard Karls Universitat Tübingen)

Laia Colomer Solsona (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research)