8th December 2010, 02:13 PM
Esoteric pontification. I agree with some of the sentiments but 'knowledge is wealth' isn't going to cut much ice in these times. Surely archaeology (and history) is all about attempting to draw conclusions to the way people have responded to situations in the past? We can contribute directly to debates about environmental degradation, migration, economic crisis, social change etc Want to prove there's over-fishing in the North Sea? Demonstrate that medieval fish were bigger than post-Med fish, which were bigger than modern fish. Worrying about the risk to buildings in flood plains? Think about those clever people in the past who always managed to build their IA, RB and Med houses on bits of land that were fractionally higher than the surrounding area. All of this is relevant to economic issues we are (or should be) worrying about.