Threats to biodiversity food shortages urban sprawl... lessons forenvironmental problems that confront us today may well be found in the past.The archaeological... » 

Threats to biodiversity food shortages urban sprawl... lessons forenvironmental problems that confront us today may well be found in the past.The archaeological record contains hundreds of situations in which societiesdeveloped longterm sustainable relationships with their environments andthousands in which the relationships were destructive.Charles Redman demonstrates that much can be learned from an improvedunderstanding of peoples who through seemingly rational decisions degradedtheir environments and threatened their own survival. By discussingarchaeological case studies from around the world from the deforestation ofthe Mayan lowlands to soil erosion in ancient Greece to the almost totaldepletion of resources on Easter Island Redman reveals the longrangecoevolution of culture and environment and clearly shows the impact thatancient peoples had on their world.These case studies focus on four themes habitat transformation and animalextinctions agricultural practices urban growth and the forces thataccompany complex society. They show that humankinds commitment to agriculturehas had cultural consequences that have conditioned our perception of theenvironment and reveal that societies before European contact did notnecessarily live the utopian existences that have been popularly supposed.Whereas most books on this topic tend to treat human societies as mere reactorsto environmental stimuli Redmans volume shows them to be active participantsin complex and evolving ecological relationships. Human Impact on AncientEnvironments demonstrates how archaeological research can provide uniqueinsights into the nature of human stewardship of theEarth and can permanentlyalter the way we think about humans and the environment. «