CALL FOR ABSTRACTS > Theme 1. Water landscapes: from human-environment interactions to socio-environmental dynamics

Coordination : Cécile Allinne ; Stoil Chapkanski ; Léa Mairaville ; Dominique Todisco

Continental and coastal hydrosystems have been attractive environments for human societies for thousand of years and all over the world. Those "water landscapes" were occupied and modified very early by societies, and played a crucial part in the processes of cultural and material diffusion. Because of their active hydro-geomorphological dynamics, theose environments allow for very responsive answers facing climate forcings. Exposed to this dynamism, waterside societies needed to invent and develop specific solutions to reduce risks and vulnerability to flooding or erosion hazard. Therefore, in this theme, we will be attentive to consider and study the vulnerability of archaeological sites facing coastline retreat, thawing permafrost, riverbank degradation or fluvial erosion, as also documented by archaeology. All of those items are important challenges for societies in France, but also worldwide.

Session 1.1. Crises and resilience of societies in alluvial and lake contexts

Coordination : Dominique TODISCO, Léa MAIRAVILLE, Louise PURDUE, Pierre-Gil SALVADOR, Yann LEJEUNE

Continental hydrosystems (rivers, lakes) are attractive environments for human societies because of the many resources they offer (water, food, raw materials), the biodiversity they contain, and their potential for transport and circulation. These environments, which were anthropized at an early stage, served as routes for the spread of both culture and materials, combining trade and technology, while at the same time offering fertile land for agriculture, thereby encouraging the development of the first agrosystems. However, these environments are extremely dynamic, responding rapidly to hydro-climatic and geomorphological forcings, as revealed by river metamorphoses, meanders mobility within alluvial plains, variations in lake levels, chronic floods and the historical drying up of water tables. For riparian societies, these changes lead to hazards and even environmental crises requiring constant adaptation and specific development, such as channelization and dyking, to reduce vulnerability and the associated risks (e.g. flooding, bank erosion). The geoarchaeological contexts associated with continental hydrosystems are varied, ranging from great river corridors to wide floodplains, to the salt water bodies, with their changing shores, located in semi-arid regions (sebkhas/chotts/playas), to the northern and mountain lakes. In this first session, this wide range of hydro-environments will enable us to explore past interactions between human societies and water landscapes over the long term, on archaeological and geohistorical scales.

Keywords : fluvio-lacustrine environments, river dynamics, crises, risks, adaptation, geoarchaeology.

Session 1.2. The trajectory of environmental socio-systems at the land-sea interface

Coordination : Cécile ALLINNE, Stoil CHAPKANSKI, Léa MAIRAVILLE, Ferreol SALOMON, Jean-Philippe GOIRAN, Pierre STÉPHAN

Coastal hydrosystems are dynamic environments at the land-sea interface, formed and controlled by a combination of terrestrial and marine hydrodynamic processes. They constitute transitional geosystems between the flows of fresh water, sediments and nutrients. Since the earliest human settlements, coastal areas have offered a wide range of resources and have become the preferred places for societies to live and trade. However, the dynamics of coastal environments, over the short time span of human settlement, overlap with the trajectories of natural environments over the long term, resulting in disruption to the evolution of ecosystems. These situations predispose human settlements to threats and lead to variable responses by societies to hazards, while the environments are also affected by human activities. This second session will explore the evolution of coastal environments by analysing the diversity of unconsolidated and rocky coastlines (estuaries, deltas, lagoons, cliffs, etc.) and associated processes, over time and space, through the prism of socio-environmental co-evolution.

Keywords : coastal environments, transition areas, port interfaces, economic resources

Session 1.3. Archaeological sites in the Anthropocene: vulnerability, management and societal challenges

Coordination : Dominique TODISCO, Cécile ALLINNE, Yoann CHANTREAU, Marie-Yvane DAIRE, Florence VERDIN

Faced with erosion and recent changes in geomorphological environments, it is important to document the vulnerability of archaeological sites. In coastal, river, underwater and undersea environments, our archaeological heritage is threatened with destruction and degradation, as it is exposed to retreating shorelines, melting permafrost and scouring phenomena in rivers and on the seabed. Over the last fifteen years or so, a number of research programmes in France and Europe, but also more widely on the North American continent and in Greenland, have been set up to list and study this endangered heritage and to consider preservation solutions for sites where destruction is not imminent or has already begun. In France, this work has led to a growing awareness at institutional level, reflected in the creation of a new focus for national archaeological research programming that takes into account the threat to archaeological heritage posed by ever-accelerating coastal erosion. This 3rd session will feature presentations highlighting the issues of vulnerability and/or conservation of archaeological sites facing the climate change. Particular attention will be paid to sunken cultural remains, a consequence of eustatic rise.

Keywords : site preservation, vulnerability, heritage, conservation, climate change, coastal retreat, erosion, permafrost melting.