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Document Details : Title: On Human(s), Environment(s) and Water(s) Subtitle: A Review Author(s): ERTSEN, Maurits W. Journal: Bibliotheca Orientalis Volume: 81 Issue: 5-6 Date: 2024 Pages: 404-409 DOI: 10.2143/BIOR.81.5.3295092 Abstract : With connections between human societies and their environments becoming ever more crucial to understand, archaeology could provide datasets and assessments to understand those relations on the longer term in ancient times. This requires strong interdisciplinary cooperation, which is what the archaeological field can offer. The challenge to build interdisciplinary work within classical archaeology is taken up in the work reviewed in this text. As such, this book is a most welcome addition to the scholarship on water in archaeology, but there are three connected concerns. First, the literature on interdisciplinary water studies that the book is based upon is quite dated, especially when it comes to more contextualizing references. Second, the discussions are rather one-dimensional when it comes to the conceptual framework, with the natural environment 'driving' human societies and similar terms. Third, the volume is mainly providing detailed descriptions of what we could label as environmental conditions when it comes to hydrological aspects and does not engage with the dynamic interplays that shape hydrology and humans. The book fails to include the latest insights on interdisciplinary water-based research within classical archaeology. This means, unfortunately, that the book does not really meaningfully engage with the dynamic interplays between humans and society. |
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