Components, subsystems, and human ecosystems

The basic goal of a contextual approach is study of the archaeological record as part of a human ecosystem within which communities once interacted spatially, economically, and socially with the environmental matrix into which they were adaptively networked (See Chapter 1). The methodological inputs of the biological, physical, chemical, and earth sciences outlined in Chapters 3 to 11 served to identify major environmental components. As argued in detail, these components represent dynamic variables that characterize several critical subsystems of ecological interaction between prehistorical peoples and their biophysical environments: settlement loci as special sedimentary subsystems, land use as landscape intervention, the utilization of plants and animals as biotic intervention or even ecosystemic transformation.

Now that the interactive subsystems have been identified, it is appropriate to integrate them by focusing on subsistence-settlement systems in space and time. This complex and difficult array of themes marks the interface between contextual archaeology and social archaeology. It also delineates the fundamental contributions of all modes of archaeological research to an understanding of modern human ecosystems and human culture. Such a task is formidable, and we are unlikely to realize success in the immediate future. But it remains a central objective, and it is incumbent on archaeologists to design and implement research trajectories that will contribute substantially to a comprehensive model of human ecosystems that will incorporate realistic parameters of spatial variability and that, ultimately, will transcend time.