reflections on historical and political ecology as research frameworks ...

WHAT I BELIEVE: REFLECTIONS ON HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ECOLOGY AS RESEARCH FRAMEWORKS IN SOUTHEASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY Victor D. Thompson1

Research themes centering on human-environment interaction have a long history in the writings of Southeastern archaeologists. However, many of the past theoretical frameworks that center on the environment do not articulate well with concepts such as agency and history as mechanisms for understanding the past. Two exceptions to this are research agendas that incorporate concepts derived from both historical and political ecology. In this paper, I explore the overlap and complementarity of various concepts from both of these frameworks. I suggest that the melding of these concepts offers a more robust avenue to consider the environment in archaeological research, which also explicitly takes into consideration both agency and history. In closing, I consider why such a perspective might benefit archaeological research in the Southeast. Research themes centering on human-environment interaction have a long history in the writings of Southeastern archaeologists (e.g., Caldwell 1958). Indeed, it is still a primary concern among many contemporary researchers. However, while our fascination with the environment remains constant, the way in which Southeastern archaeologists conceptualize it has not. Today, we are faced with a multitude of concepts that can be broadly labeled as environmental or ecological archaeology. Many researchers with a theoretical bent towards environmental concerns center on subsistence related research problems (see Watson 1990). Others tend to examine large-scale environmental change (e.g., the Pleistocene–Holocene transition) and the accompanying shifts in cultural traditions. Such research frameworks and bodies of theory fall under numerous names, including cultural ecology, human behavioral ecology, and evolutionary ecology. It is not my intention here to critique these approaches. However, many of the core ideas and concepts central to these bodies of literature do not articulate well with other popular theoretical frameworks that are motivated by questions of agency and history as a mechanism for understanding the past (e.g., historical processualism). Even though some argue that the methodological

individualism of some of these approaches (e.g., human behavioral ecology) is congruent with agencybased approaches (Winterhalder 2002:10), this misses the point regarding the role of the individual as both a reproducer of structure and a nexus of structural change (see Beck et al. 2007 for an explanation of the roles of agency and structure). Perhaps the primary reason why environmentally influenced theoretical frameworks do not mesh well with others that incorporate more agency-based approaches is that the latter approaches advocate views that emphasize more proximate causes of change which are situated in notions of tradition building through practice (Pauketat 2001a:2–4; see Moore and Thompson 2012 for similar points). As Pauketat (2001b:86) states, approaches to many of the core questions (e.g., social inequality, origins of agriculture) in archaeology ‘‘still essentialize macroscale phenomena to the detriment of explaining historical processes.’’ My goals in this paper are to illustrate that in contrast to other ‘‘ecological anthropologies,’’ both historical and political ecology allow for a more fully integrated discussion of both agency and history, although each is not without its problems or deficiencies. Specifically, I advocate an approach that emphasizes and augments some of the core ideas from these bodies of literature. The overlap between these two research programs is somewhat ambiguous. In some instances, historical ecology is discussed as being encompassed by political ecology (Offen 2004; Robbins 2012). However, others view their similarities as only converging in terms of the applied side of such work (Baleé 2006:80). This confusion over where the overlap and convergences lie between historical and political ecology may be due in large part to the vagaries surrounding the exact research agenda of political ecology, whereas scholars of historical ecology provide clear guidelines to the concepts that structure their research (see Baleé 2006; Robbins 2012). My aim in this paper is to offer ideas and points of departure regarding how concepts from both can be articulated in the context of archaeological research. It is not my intention to develop a new theory or research agenda in combining these concepts. However, following Offen (2004), I refer to melding these bodies of literature as historical-political ecology as shorthand to emphasize when I am talking about

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Department of Anthropology, 250 Baldwin Hall, Jackson Street, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-1617; e-mail: [email protected] Southeastern Archaeology 33:246–254

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ECOLOGY where these frameworks overlap in their core ideas. In the concluding section of this paper, I consider how aspects of these perspectives are useful for research in the American Southeast.

Why the Environment? Before moving on to consider how concepts of historical and political ecologies intersect and overlap, I would like to consider a fundamental question related to this literature. That is, why is it important to consider the environment at all? Perhaps for most archaeologists this might seem like an obvious question, with even those who do not self-identify as ‘‘environmental archaeologists’’ recognizing implicitly the importance of such considerations. This lingering wholesale acceptance of the significance of the environment in archaeology is likely a product of the movement towards a more scientific approach engendered through the processual archaeology movement of the 1960s (Binford 1962, 1965), which of course was rooted in the emergence of ecological anthropology (see Hodder and Hutson 2003). Historically in anthropology, there were reactions against overly environmental explanations. For example, Sahlins (1976:29, cited in Wolf 1999:19) heavily criticized Rappaport’s (1984) famous ecologically informed arguments regarding ritual as a ‘‘style of materialism’’ that ignored the meaningful ways in which human action is organized (Wolf 1999:19). Similarly, archaeologists associated with the postprocessual movement of the 1980s leveled analogous critiques against the settlementsubsistence archaeology that had come to dominate the literature, calling for a larger consideration regarding issues related to meaning and human action (see Hodder and Hutson 2003). Despite changes in theoretical winds, none of these new formulations denied that the environment was not an important factor in understanding the past. Again, this might seem like a pedestrian point to make; however, we must remember that there are a number of different anthropologies for which the environment plays little to no active role in their analysis. Clearly, there are potential theoretical pitfalls in considering human action and the environment. One of the ways practitioners of both historical and political ecologies mediate the chance of environmentally deterministic explanations is by viewing human-environmental relationships as dialectical (Marquardt 1992). In part, what this means is that there are more variables than simply subsistence and the like in terms of people’s interaction with the environment. This is not to say that the work of daily life is unimportant—quite the opposite, in fact. However, such considerations must always be articulated with, and factor in, historical, social, and political relations (Marquardt 1985:70, 1992; see also Crumley 1994).

The dialectical perspective brings us closer to envisioning the world not as humans and nature but as continuous flows of relationships that emerge and dissolve. As Ingold (2000:15–16) states, we must ‘‘replace the stale dichotomy of nature and culture with the dynamic synergy of organism and environment, in order to regain a genuine ecology of life.’’ Ingold (2011:3–4) refers to such a perspective as ‘‘dwelling’’ in an effort to cast off notions of the ‘‘two worlds of nature and society.’’ In such a perspective, it becomes clear that not only is the environment important, but the question I posed at the beginning of this section has no meaning in that we cannot speak of one without the other. Throughout the rest of this paper, I refer to these as human-environmental relationships to denote these ideas. I recognize that by hyphenating this word it still seemingly sets humans and the environment as distinct entities; however, others ways of expressing the entangled nature of this concept are more confusing than they are helpful.

Historical and Political Ecologies Historical and political ecology now have long intellectual histories in anthropology. Perhaps the best way to describe both of these approaches is as frameworks, and in fact practitioners of historical ecology have described it in this fashion (Baleé and Erickson 2006). Neither of these are true theories or methods, but both are frameworks that guide research interests and questions. I say that they are not theories because they do not posit specific ideas about the way the world works. This would be in contrast to, for example, Marxist approaches to research (see Muller 1997 for a southeastern example). Nor are they methods in that they do not specify how we go about connecting our observations to broader theory. Neither historical nor political ecology put forth causal statements, empirically testable assumptions, or specific predictions, at least in the sense that other formal theories do. However, both frameworks are ways of conceptualizing human-environmental relationships that integrate both history and human action. In what follows, I explore some of the complimentary themes in these bodies of literature. I do this in an effort to put forth a more coherent framework, one that integrates ideas from both historical and political ecology and that takes into account both the large and small histories of the human past, while retaining an approach that sees the environment as seamlessly integrated into such endeavors. Robbins (2012) defines political ecology as a community of practice. In doing this, he chooses to stress its eclecticism, with some researchers emphasizing certain aspects such as political economy and environmental change, and others concentrating on other aspects. Despite its eclectic nature, however, there are common research themes or tropes that fall under this term, which

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SOUTHEASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 33(2) WINTER 2014 Robbins (2012) outlines in his introductory text on the subject. It would be quite easy to become bogged down in the myriad connections to archaeology that can be drawn from Robbins’s discussion. Moreover, I do not see following his line of reasoning of viewing political ecology as a community of practice for archaeology as productive. Therefore, I opt to center on a particular research theme in political ecology that is perhaps most relevant to archaeology. This paper will discuss political ecology as research that focuses on the integration ‘‘of biophysical and political-economic phenomena’’ as suggested by Brannstrom (2004:75) as well as ‘‘negotiations of social relationships and differential access to social resources’’ (Bauer et al. 2007:8). Put another way, political ecology seeks to understand how ‘‘groups navigate and live (both materially and discursively) forms of power and inequality existing at multiple nested scales’’ (Morehart and Morell-Hart 2013:6). I opt for concentrating on these aspects of political ecology as it places the emphasis of analysis not just on the traditional elite/commoner relationships but also on the more decentralized and amorphous social relationships (Bauer et al. 2007:8), which in my mind, as I argue later in this paper, include nonhuman entities. The question then is: in what way is history important? I think part of the answer to this is Patterson’s (1994:230) observation regarding historical ecology, that to understand human-environmental relations in terms of totalities, we must consider the fact that they are products of historical circumstances at a given point in time. By totalities Patterson (1994:230) means ‘‘a dialectically structured and historically determined unity that exist in and through the diverse interpenetrations, connections, and contradictions that join its constituent parts.’’ In other words, the connections between humans and the larger world are always historically constituted and changing based on various circumstances and events. In this sense, history has somewhat of a dual nature. So how then do we interject history in political ecology? In a special issue of the journal Historical Geography, Offen (2004) explores the utility of melding both historical and political ecology viewpoints. He notes that historicizing political ecology is important because while researchers have always made use of historical analysis, few have attempted to ‘‘elaborate upon the use, scope, or role’’ of it (Offen 2004:21). Such an uncritical use of ‘‘history’’ fails to consider not only how the researcher, but also how past peoples, meaningfully constitute such histories. Past uses of historical analysis seem then merely to view it as a context that is static in which some more important problem is situated. Offen (2004) provides a useful working characterization of historical-political ecology. In this formulation, he stresses that this approach be grounded in ‘‘fieldinformed interpretations’’ regarding socio-ecological

relationships and ‘‘how and why those relations have changed (or not changed) over time and space’’ and how those interpretations can improve ‘‘social justice and nature conservation’’ (Offen 2004:21). I think this is a good point to start from for a historical-political ecology perspective in terms of archaeological theory and method. First, one of the fundamental things to consider is the notion of history in Offen’s characterization of a historical-political ecology. As he notes, one of the main points for such research is an attention to how and why human-environmental relationships change in time and space. In his own research on the Sumu-Miskito of Nicaragua, he thought ‘‘historical context’’ was ‘‘out there’’ waiting for him. As he points out, instead, there was a ‘‘multiplicity of potential historical contexts’’ for his research (Offen 2004:20). Pauketat’s (2001a, 2001b) notions of agency, structure, and history can help shed light on the idea of being able to discuss multiple histories. Drawing on scholars such as Giddens (1979) and Bourdieu (1977), Pauketat conceives of history as the dynamic, recursive, and generative interplay between agency and structure (see also Sassaman and Holly 2011:3). Returning to the theme of historical-political ecology as research that specifically addresses changes in humanenvironmental relationships, particularly with regard to political-economic circumstances and the biophysical environment, we see how Pauketat’s notion of history is important. That is, to understand how relationships articulate around various aspects of the environment, we must consider how the varied histories of people and groups influenced not only how these relationships change in space and time but also how they influence the ability of certain groups and individuals to impose and/ or resist the will of others concerning specific resources. For example, we might consider histories in this context to mean the various historical relationships that different groups have with specific resources and/or the broader environment. Thus, one can image that in certain cases at some point or event the divergent histories of these various agents (or groups of agents) may lead to conflict and/or inequalities surrounding particular environmental features or resources. We see many examples of this in anthropology in terms of use rights, hunting areas, traditional subsistence practices, among others (see Robbins 2012). In addition to human agents, a historical-political ecology perspective should consider that landscapes and histories are also populated with nonhuman agents. Robbins (2012: 240–241) considers narratives of human and nonhuman interactions as one of the defining features of a practice of political ecology, often focusing on the role of animals. However, from a historical perspective, the degree to which nonhuman actors expands to not just other plants and animals but to

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HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ECOLOGY places and structures imbued with meaning. Nonhuman actors in this sense can be spirits, mounds, and ancestors, in addition to animals, plants, and other resources upon which people depend. This decidedly relational view of the world is important as it allows us to consider the ways in which people, as Pauketat (2001b:73) states, ‘‘negotiated their views of others and of their own pasts.’’ Dillehay’s (2007) work on kewls and the Araucanian mounded landscape exemplifies some of these ideas. In this work he argues that such landscapes were defined by historical events and are a social form of that history in which the mounds were active participants (for additional archaeological examples, see Moore and Thompson [2012] and Zedenõ [2013]; for another example of the incorporation of nonhumans in such perspectives, see Ingold [2000, 2006, 2011, 2012]). The various points expressed above also have methodological considerations for a historical-political ecology approach. I think one of the more important aspects of Offen’s formulation is the emphasis on ‘‘field informed’’ observations and interpretations, which for archaeology includes not just excavations and material culture studies but also the analysis of historical maps, photographs, interviews, ethnohistorical documents, paleoenvironmental reconstructions, and the like. These data sets are, of course, under the normal purview of archaeological studies. However, to ground our use of such data in a perspective that takes as its core history, we must be cognizant that each of these data sets represents not just one unified history, nor even parts of a history, but rather our (re)construction of the potential multiple histories of a given research area. Thus while it is possible that different data sets will reveal convergences, it is also possible that the various data sets we work with reflect contestation, dissidence, and resistance, or some combination of these various aspects of social relationships. The point here is that we must be aware of these issues not only during our analysis but also when we design research projects. Finally, we must be cognizant of our own histories as researchers and be self-critical regarding what we choose to center on and whose histories we might be unintentionally privileging. Up to this point, I have stressed an approach that focuses on more proximate explanations of humanenvironmental relationships. Such a view is important if we are to understand the microscale operations of such relationships. As archaeologists we are often engaged in a continued struggle to articulate both macro and micro scale histories. Indeed, recent writings by Robb and Pauketat (2013) attempt to sync these various scales together. More specifically, Beck and colleagues (2007; see also Beck [this volume] and Bolender [2010]) conceptual work linking longer term interplays of structure with shorter term actions and events may indeed provide some of the theoretical and methodological starting points to toggle between various time scales while at

the same time giving serious consideration to how the environment is articulated in such analyses. Here I do not intend to offer concrete theoretical links between these various scales of time. Such a task would be another paper in and of itself. However, I would like to consider how we might begin to move in this direction in historical and political ecology to more comparative or general considerations, in other words to meld both proximate to ultimate explanations.

Landscapes and Scales of Analysis Perhaps one of the most important concepts in the literature on historical ecology is the idea of landscape as the unit of analysis (Baleé 2006:77; Baleé and Erickson 2006; Crumley 1994:9; Marquardt and Crumley 1987). While there are many different notions as to what constitutes landscape (Kowalewski 2008:251), historical ecologists view it as part of the built environment and something that tracks the dialectic between human action and their world (Baleé and Erickson 2006:2). Given my earlier discussion of human-environmental relationships, I would push this a bit further and say that landscapes are the material manifestations of the multiple and sometime conflicting histories of various agents. In either case, the practical consequences for archaeological studies are similar in that landscapes are much more than the location of sites in given environments, but rather why and how places are created and altered over time. Specifically, the core of such analyses is to understand the social, economic, and political relationships that were part of the historical linkages between places of action and absence. As Bauer et al. (2007:7) state, ‘‘Landscapes can be profoundly political, as social claims are materialized through monuments, and places characterized by inclusivity and exclusivity, access and restriction, or moral and immoral activity are differentially made and remade.’’ Implicit in the above discussion of landscape is that people are inseparable from the environment and highly cognizant of the fact that their actions not affect it, but also are part of the world they inhabit. This is true regardless of political organization. As Kidder (2013:182) notes, people ‘‘knowingly attribute to the land cultural values (genealogy, history, and myth) that affect how they use resources, recognize landscapes and justify their actions.’’ Such a perspective is important because its suggestion is that despite societal scale or economic organization humans actively manipulate their world for various purposes (Thompson 2013). These actions can result in intended and unintended effects at both long and short-term time scales (Baleé and Erickson 2006:1, 5). The implication of the above discussion is that there are many aspects of landscape, both temporal and spatial, that any one researcher may choose to emphasize

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SOUTHEASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 33(2) WINTER 2014 in their endeavor to understand human-environmental relationships. The major pitfall in doing this is that at one scale of analysis there is the danger of history merely again becoming a backdrop, as we see in other ecological analyses, as seeking ultimate explanations become central to the work (see discussion by Marquardt 1992:11–12). Conversely, an emphasis on more proximate explanations can possibly obscure valuable comparative observations and contemporary relevance. This is a theme common to archaeology, as Richard Bradley (1998:14) states: There is an inevitable tension between accounts which can do justice to the richness of the available evidence and those which attempt to write a broader history. One runs the risk of ignoring the wider context in the interest of exploring the archaeology of one region, while the other will always be open to charges of superficiality. Bradley’s quote nicely underscores the conflict between different scales of analysis. However, one of the parts of the research program in historical ecology deals with understanding the linkages between multiple scales of analysis (Baleé 1998; Baleé and Erickson 2006:12; Crumley 1994:10, 2007:16–17; Erickson 2008:158; Marquardt 1992:107; Marquardt and Crumley 1987:2–4). Often, this is expressed as a spatial problem, but it can be emphasized as a temporal one as well. Recently, Christopher Moore and I (Moore and Thompson 2012) took on some of these issues in an attempt to reconcile some of the problems with working at multiple scales, particularly of the temporal variety. We advocated an approach that draws on multiple theoretical perspectives and examines both proximate and ultimate causes in archaeological explanation. To explain the relationship between these two issues, we drew on Bailey’s notion of time perspectivism and Pauketat’s (2001a:2–4) notion of history as a ‘‘process of tradition building.’’ Bailey’s (2007:200) original formulation of time perspectivism suggests that ‘‘different timescales bring into focus different features of behaviour, requiring different sorts of explanatory principles.’’ The degree to which we can address a certain problem is always, to some extent, constrained by the archaeological record (Bailey 2007:16; Moore and Thompson 2012:266). For example, specific interpretations and statements regarding individual agency, perception, and the like are often difficult— particularly in the deep past. Bailey is, of course, not against investigations that deal with microscale phenomena, but he does feel they should not ‘‘replace approaches that deal with longer temporal scales’’ (Moore and Thompson 2012:266). On the other hand, Pauketat (2001a, 2001b) advocates a view that emphasizes more proximate causes that are situated in his notion of tradition building thought practice (Pauketat 2001a:2–4). And while he does not dismiss the use of multiple scales (see Pauketat and Alt 2003), change is seen to germinate from the local level, and thus

questions are geared toward an understanding at this scale. As a way to find common ground, we advocate a perspective that moves between the different scales of analysis and considers explanations and interpretations at each (Moore and Thompson 2012). By doing this, we argue that the end result is a richer understanding of the past that considers the actions and histories of people without sacrificing a consideration of processes that operate at larger spatial or temporal scales (Moore and Thompson 2012: 265; Thompson 2010). Considering explanation and interpretations at multiple scales is an important part of a coherent methodology rooted in the concepts I have outlined, as the explanations and interpretations at one spatial or temporal level may operate differently at a larger or smaller scale. Therefore, such a view is essential to understanding multiple levels of analysis interacting to form a complex whole.

Historical and Political Ecology in the American Southeast In sum, I believe that historical and political ecology approaches are better situated to take into account how history and agency are intertwined with the environment. The core underlying idea for both of these frameworks is that humans and the environment are inseparable. In such a view, history, politics, and the sociality of life cannot be studied independent from the environment. Understanding emerges only by considering these aspects as part of a totality on multiple temporal and spatial scales that encompass multiple histories. Such an approach allows us to consider both proximate and ultimate explanations of the past at the same time. Based on my outline above, I think there are several reasons why such an approach, or aspects of this approach, is useful to Southeastern archaeologists. As Baleé (2006:80) notes, one of the obvious areas of overlap between historical and political ecology is that both have strong applied components to their research programs. Thus one of the primary goals is not only to understand the consequences of human action on past ecosystems but also to understand how past action continues to influence the modern environment. Furthermore, studies showing the degree of impact that human action had on past ecosystems, regardless of scale, can inform our own. This idea is rooted in the notion that human activities and intentions have consequences for both the biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems and thus influences biodiversity not only in the past but also in futures distant from the original actors (Baleé 1994:117, 2010; Erickson 2008:160). This aspect is historical ecology’s anthropocentric view of understanding ecosystems, as opposed to ecocentric or geocentric (Baleé 2006). The eastern seaboard is one of the most developed and populous areas of the United

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HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ECOLOGY States. Almost daily we lose both cultural and biological resources to development along our coasts. By examining past human-environmental interactions, Southeastern archaeologists are able to illustrate both our potential to understand the past and what this means for present-day and future ecosystems. For example, as my colleagues and I argue for the Georgia coast, Native American settlements help maintain keystone structures in this ecosystem and continue to play an important role in its functioning (Thompson et al. 2013). Other studies in coastal areas of the American Southeast have also done much to clarify the nature of human life in the context of sea-level change (Marquardt and Walker 2012, 2013; Thompson and Turck 2009). The varied histories of these interactions have the potential to inform present day concerns and discussions, especially when state governments refuse to acknowledge the extent to which sea-level rise will occur in the future in light of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models (see Turck 2012). Yet another benefit of a perspective that focuses on human-environmental relationships is that it places archaeologists in a unique position to convey the idea that humans are not separate from nature. Thus I see part of our job as conveying that, like people in the past, we live within the environment and not on it (see Marquardt 1992:112). This is especially critical in our role as educators to the general public. There are several programs across the Southeast which take on such roles. Some of the best examples that I know of are in Florida, such as the outreach done by the Florida Public Archaeology Network and the Randell Research Center, although these by no means are the only examples, whose specific mission in the latter case is to educate the public with regard to archaeology, history, and ecology (see Marquardt 1994, 1996). One final note regarding this aspect is that such an approach also allows us to demonstrate our relevance to modern society. Of course, the importance of archaeology is obvious to archaeologists; however, for the general public, policy makers, and elected officials, this is less clear. Beyond the more applied aspects that I discuss above, historical and political ecology approaches have the potential to inform our understanding of the lives of past peoples and more fully realize the potential relationships that we can identify in the past. Furthermore, both frameworks emphasize that we understand such relationships at multiple temporal and spatial scales (see Marquardt 1992:107). Southeastern archaeologists have done much to elucidate the nature of the ‘‘built environment,’’ which includes the earthworks, plazas, and other forms of public architecture that cover the landscape of the Southeast (e.g., Kidder 2011; Knight 2001; Rodning 2009; Thompson and Pluckhahn 2012). However, for the most part we have looked at

these as simple reflections of political power, ideology, labor organization, and polity duration. To be sure, many of these studies have contributed much to our understanding of ultimate explanations of such phenomena in the region. We are now at a point where understanding the microhistories of such places requires greater attention, as others have called for, so as not to gloss over important contingent factors of the past. Such an approach requires that we take into account not just human action but also the role of nonhuman agents in history making, which in my mind includes places and other parts of the built environment (e.g., earthworks) among other aspects of the landscape. Finally, the nature of the record in the Southeast lends itself to the approach I outline. Although we often hear the call for more data at conferences, having now worked in other countries and through conversations with nonSoutheastern colleagues, I would hazard to say that the Southeast has one of the best-organized and most easily accessible archaeological records in the world. As such, it offers one of the best ‘‘laboratories’’ to address significant research problems in anthropological archaeology. Such a record affords us the ability to delve into the data to reveal the detailed histories of sites and regions of the Southeast. Indeed, some among us consider such endeavors to be one of the primary goals of archaeology (Pauketat 2001a, b), and others have heeded this call (e.g., Pluckhahn et al. 2010; Randall 2008; Sassaman 2010; Sassaman and Randall 2012). However, in addition to the rich archaeological record of the region, there is a tremendous amount of paleoenvironmental and ecological data that are relevant to the histories of the Southeast. Several individuals have made great strides in articulating such data with broad scale shifts and even in some cases individual actions (see Anderson et al. 1995; Anderson et al. 2007 Jefferies 2008; Kidder 2006; Thomas 2008). However, we should not uncritically link these two together, as I discuss earlier. If done with this in mind, the melding of paleoenvironmental data with the detailed histories constructed by archaeologists affords us a more holistic perspective of the past, one that speaks to both proximate and ultimate explanations of the past at various scales. In conclusion, I believe that the nature of the archaeological record provides a nexus for us to reflect upon not just the past but also the future. I suggest that the emphasis of our analysis should be on relationships, not just to one another but also to animals, places, and the host of other entities that inhabit our universe. Although far from a complete formulation of exactly how to go about this task, the outline I provide above for historical and political ecology allows us to take the necessary first steps in this process. Finally, I suggest that the Southeast has much to offer in terms of exploring these ideas, as it presents one of the best

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SOUTHEASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 33(2) WINTER 2014 records, in terms of both archaeological and environmental data, to discern the ecology of life of both the distant and recent past.

Notes Acknowledgments. I thank Jim Knight for inviting me to present a previous version of this paper at the 2012 Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I would also like to thank Meg Kassabaum, our discussant for this session, who offered a number of thoughtful comments on my paper. Four reviewers and Tom Pluckhahn offered suggestions for revision for which I am grateful. A number of individuals and colleagues have influenced, though both agreement and disagreement, my thinking on this subject, including, in no particular order, Chris Rodning, John Turck, Rob Beck, Chris Moore, Tom Pluckhahn, Bill Baleé, Stephen Kowalewski, Amanda Roberts Thompson, Karen Walker, William Marquardt, Ken Sassaman, T. R. Kidder, David Anderson, Tim Pauketat, Richard Jefferies, Tom Dillehay, Chris Pool, Ted Gragson, Jamie Waggoner, John Chamblee, Steve Pennings, and David Hurst Thomas. However, I alone am to blame for any errors within this paper or fits of confusion it may cause.

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