On Thursday, 7 November, PI Rosie Bishop and Fellow Ingrid Mainland will present “Climate Crops and Crisis Project: Current Considerations” during the lunch seminar. 

Abstract: How resilient were prehistoric farmers to climate deterioration? Did they adapt their farming strategies to climate change? How can we recognise agricultural adaptation and resilience in the archaeological record? The “Climate, Crops and Crisis” project aims to provide an interdisciplinary dialogue to determine the best methods for identifying agricultural adaptation, resilience and vulnerability in the archaeological record. We will critically examine the data and methods for identifying if agricultural adaptation or major transformations in food procurement strategies occurred and if they were linked to climate change. We will focus specifically on the evidence from two case-study areas - Northern Scotland and Southern Norway - with similar climatic but contrasting cultural and agricultural histories, during the 4th to 1st millennium BC. A considerable quantity of data is available from different disciplines for the study area, and by integrating this data, we can now provide a sophisticated understanding of human-climate interactions in the past. This presentation will give an overview of the project, with case-studies given from different parts of the project to illustrate the methods and approach.