OEB Seminar Series: Shayla L. Monroe

Shayla L. Monroe 
Assistant Professor of Anthropology 
Department of Anthropology 
Harvard University

Comparative Human Ecologies: The View from Zooarchaeology

Abstract: Zooarchaeology is a specific branch of environmental archaeology dealing with human-animal relations in the past.  While zooarchaeology’s indebtedness, and co-constitutive relationships with paleoecology and paleoclimatology are well-discussed, ongoing relationships with other approaches to ecology, including Ecology (as an academic discipline), Indigenous Ecological Knowledge, Cultural Ecology, Human Behavioral Ecology, Political Ecology, Historical Ecology, De-colonial Ecology, and Feminist Ecology, require further interrogation.  What does zooarchaeology have to offer, and how will zooarchaeology listen to and engage with the diverse and contrasting factions claiming a stake in shifting concepts of “ecology”?  A new and ongoing course at Harvard University entitled Comparative Human Ecologies, was designed to examine the history and future of creative friction between these approaches. Here I summarize the experience of working through these intellectual tensions with students, assessing the real-world implications for interdisciplinary and inclusive discussions of multispecies relationships, past, present, and future.

Host: Professor David Haig