Editorial

Abstract

No such caveats, however, are deemed necessary around the report s starting premise: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land” (Figure 1).2 The following 4000 pages make for grim reading: “Global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3000 years (high confidence)”;“Global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2000 years (high confidence)”;“Temperatures during the most recent decade (2011–2020) exceed those of the most recent multi-century warm period, around 6500 years ago (medium confidence)”;and “In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than at any time in at least 2 million years (high confidence)”. Climate change is already having deleterious effects on the archaeological record, and these will increase in number and severity, whether due to wildfires, melting ice, rising sea levels or falling water tables. In many cases, the response has been mobility—an option that is ever harder to contemplate in the contemporary world, although one that will surely be necessary.5 But we can look to other adaptations too, such as types of architecture and building materials that are better suited to mitigating the effects of storms, heat or flooding, and to types of farming that are less damaging to soils.6 A recent study of the Asian summer monsoon, for example, integrates palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data to examine human responses to changing temperatures and precipitation across the Holocene.7 Critically, it also considers future climate change and how we might make use of adaptive strategies of the past, such as crop diversification and the revival of landraces that preserve water and soil fertility. Some climate scientists, for example, are looking to the social sciences and humanities for ways to communicate with non-specialists.10 As professional narrative-builders, archaeologists are well positioned to explore how we use the power of ‘storytelling’ to reach wider audiences. [...]with expertise on the artefacts, sites and landscapes that are integral to peoples’ identities, we also have the means through which to engage and motivate action.