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Dead Important: Policy from the Past

Module description

Earth is under pressure from a growing human population and the associated intensification of food production, urbanisation, globalisation, inequality, conflict, environmental degradation and climate change. In 2015 the United Nations launched Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The agenda set out plans to tackle current global challenges through seventeen interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which span issues from food security and biodiversity conservation to health and education.

The importance of addressing the SDGs cannot be overstated, but existing approaches to achieving long-term solutions have been widely critiqued. Coming generally from the field of international development, which is itself the product of Western belief systems, strategies are often colonial and anthropocentric, wherein humans are conceptualised either at the centre of the natural world, or as separate from it. Furthermore, research agendas have prioritised narrowly focused scientific investigations, even though many global challenges are fundamentally cultural and possess deep, complex histories.

This module will highlight how archaeological and historical perspectives can not only contextualise global challenges but have the potential to mitigate them. Students will hear from staff across the disciplines of archaeology, history, philosophy and classics who have used their research to bring about changes in cultural understanding, behaviours and policies linked to the SDGs. They will learn from policy advisors and media specialists so that they create their own policy briefs and public engagement activities on topics of their own choice.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Provide knowledge of how archaeological and historical perspectives can help address modern global issues
• Evaluate case studies and examples that demonstrate the relevance of archaeological and historical research in providing solutions to modern global challenges in an international context.
• Engage with critical debates about the potential and limitations of deep time research to contribute to modern policy issues and global challenges
• Develop skills in critical evaluation of research potential and dissemination to non-academic audiences, e.g. the general public, and policy makers

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an appreciation of the unique transdisciplinary nature of archaeology and history in providing informed and imaginative solutions to complex global issues.
• 2. Demonstrate ability to gather and integrate data from a wide range of Arts, Humanities and Scientific methods and analytical techniques

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Ability to assemble diverse evidence and synthesise it into a coherent linear argument to support a particular view or interpretation
• 4. Show understanding of current high-profile topics in global development and how archaeology and history perspectives can contribute to these

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Engage in critical discussions of complex issues and gain ability to weigh competing interpretations of the same evidence to reach own reasoned judgements
• 6. Gain an understanding of how research can translate into policy change

Syllabus plan

This course is organised around a series of lectures, seminars and workshops. Content will be selected on the basis of current relevance as well as staffing expertise. It is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Global perspectives on the history of science and policy
• Archaeological and historical contributions to the understanding of biodiversity, translocation and species dispersal and impacts on modern conservation policy
• Food systems - cultures, behaviours and histories of agriculture, food, and nutrition
• The deep time relationships between social (in)equality, diet, and well-being
• Human-Animal-Environmental health and zoonotic diseases
• The impacts of past and present climate change on human societies
• Perspectives on past and present water management
• Heritage conservation and sustainability

At the end of the module all students will participate in an event where public engagement activities will be showcased, and policy documents made available.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 1500-word policy brief as in the original assessment, but replaces design and participation in an engagement activity, with a written engagement activity portfolio. The portfolio should design an engagement activity, outline the objectives, describe how the activity would be structured and organised, and detail all materials to be used, the creation of handouts, mock-ups of displays, and the logistics of the target audience, duration of activity and venue. This will enable a reader to gain a sense of what the student intended to do in their engagement activity, the rationale for this activity, and what the proposed objectives would be.

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%. 

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Baker et al. (2024) ‘The 10,000-year biocultural history of fallow deer and its implications for conservation policy.’ PNAS
• Boivin, N. and Crowther, A. (2021) ‘Mobilizing the past to shape a better Anthropocene’, Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(3), pp. 273–284. 
• Carse, A. "Dirty Landscapes: How Weediness Indexes State Disinvestment and Global Disconnection" in Infrastructure, Environment, and Life in the Anthropocene edited by Kregg Hetherington. Duke University Press, pp. 97-114.
• Çelik, S., Luke C. and Roosevelt C. H. (2022/2024). "Ottoman Lakes and Fluid Landscapes: Environing, Wetlands, and Conservation in the Marmara Lake Basin, circa 1550-1900." Environment and History 30(1): 53-76.
• Coningham, R. and Witcher, R. (2022) ‘Editorial’, Antiquity, 96(385), pp. 1–14.
• Gould, P.G. (2018) Empowering communities through archaeology and heritage: the role of local governance in economic development. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Hritz, C. et al. (2022) ‘If the past teaches, what does the future learn? Ancient Urban Regions and the Durable Future.’ Edited by J.T. Murphy and C.L. Crumley. TU Delft.
• Iriarte, J. (2024). The Archaeology of Amazonia: A Human History, Chapter 10: Lessons from the past for a challenging future: Revitalising tropical forest livelihoods. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 215-230.
• Kemp, L., & Cline, E. H. (2022). Systemic risk and resilience: The bronze age collapse and recovery. In Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises: What the Future Needs from History (pp. 207-223). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
• O'Gorman, E. (2021). Wetlands in a Dry Land: More-than-Human Histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin. University of Washington Press.
• Otter, C. (2020). Diet for a Large Planet: Industrial Britain, Food Systems, and World Ecology (1st ed.). University of Chicago Press.
• Sterelny, K. (2016). Contingency and history. Philosophy of Science, 83(4), 521-539.
• Sykes, N., (2017). Fair game: exploring the dynamics, perception and environmental impact of ‘surplus’ wild foods in England 10kya–present. World Archaeology, 49(1), pp.61-72.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
• Marci Baranski, B. (2022). The Globalization of Wheat: A Critical History of the Green Revolution. University of Pittsburgh Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv3029w37
• Curry, H. A. (2016). Evolution Made to Order: Plant Breeding and Technological Innovation in Twentieth-Century America (1st ed., Vol. 56217). The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226390116.001.0001

Key words search

Archaeology; history; biodiversity; policy