Assessing the impacts of socioeconomic strategies on Legacy Ecological Impacts
Environmental archaeologists have studied the interactions of human societies and their ecological surroundings for over a century. At landscape scales, most theoretical attention has focused on large-scale societies and intensive land-use strategies. Meanwhile, “small-scale” societies have received far less attention, especially at a landscape scale. Foraging communities, in particular, are often associated with low-intensity land use, and represent an understudied component of the archaeological record. Due to limited data, the long-term impacts of foraging are poorly understood from a landscape perspective and thus there is great opportunity for theoretical development pertaining to foraging societies and their role in ecosystem engineering.This project will investigate ecological legacies of land-use among foraging, pastoralist, and agricultural societies in the Velondriake Marine Protected Area in southwest Madagascar. The island represents a unique location to study the intersection if socioeconomic systems and their ecological impacts over the past millennium, as the region contains an intricate (but fragile) archaeological record and is inhabited by several ethnic group which are largely defined by their subsistence strategies. This study attempts to challenge traditional distinctions of “low-impact” and “high-impact” land-use and instead highlight the fluid and comparable nature of socio-ecological dynamics among societies with different economic practices. The project will address two specific questions:
1. How do long-term habitations of foraging communities’ impact local and regional soil and vegetative diversity? How do these impacts compare to short-term occupations and with other socioeconomic groups (i.e., herders, agriculturalists)?
2. How do different socioeconomic systems influence the ecological legacy of human occupation in an area? How can understanding these differences change our understanding of sustainable living strategies?
To answer these questions, I will use multispectral satellite images, geochemical/isotopic analysis of soil samples from archaeological and non-archaeological sites, radiometric dating, and oral history records to understand changes in soil and vegetation patterns over time across regions with distinctive socioeconomic practices. Overall, this project will permit for a robust investigation into the geographic extent and diversity of human settlement and economic strategies throughout the SW of Madagascar. This also has the potential to expedite cultural heritage management and our understanding of the long-term ecological impacts of different socioeconomic systems.