Page 14 - Proceedings book

We must remind ourselves that any given place contains multiple pasts, not a single
authoritative narrative. A site can be read historically, through written documents and
chronicles; anthropologically, through oral traditions and inherited memory;
archaeologically, through material remains; and sociologically, as the product of more
recent forces—political, economic, and ideological. No place belongs to one past alone.
Every site is a palimpsest—a layered surface of meanings, inscriptions, erasures, and re-
inscriptions To approach a place archaeologically, then, is not merely to recover what is
ancient. It is to navigate these overlapping temporalities with humility and care. The
meanings of a site are never fixed—they are dynamic, contested, and always shaped by
power. What we choose to excavate, what we preserve, what we ignore: these are acts of
interpretation, and they have consequences in the present. Especially in a society like ours,
where the past is so often mobilized for exclusion, this layered understanding becomes an
ethical and political imperative.
Today, I want to reflect with you on what archaeology can do—not only for the study of the
past, but for the urgent challenges of the present and future. I will ask:
• How has archaeology contributed to unsustainable, unjust, or exclusionary ideas?
• How might we rethink archaeological practice in ways that heal, care, and restore?
• And how can archaeology become a creative force for sustainability—ecological,
social, and ethical?

This is not a technical talk. It is an invitation to think differently—about memory, about
responsibility, and about imagination. Let me begin by reflecting on what we mean by
sustainability, and why it matters so profoundly today.

Reframing Sustainability
We often hear the word sustainability in the context of environmental discourse—policies
on carbon emissions, renewable energy, water management, and waste. But what does it
truly mean to sustain something? At its heart, sustainability is not simply about conserving
resources or reducing harm. It is about cultivating relationships that endure. It is about
care—care for the land, for the living world, for future generations. It is about recognizing
that we are not masters of the earth, but participants in a fragile, interdependent web of
life.

In this sense, archaeology offers something profound—something that disciplines focused
on the immediate and measurable often overlook. Archaeology allows us to step outside the
compressed timelines of modern development. It invites us to think in deep time—to look
across centuries and millennia of human experience, and to ask how people have lived,
struggled, and transformed in relation to their environments and to one another. Through
this long durée, we begin to see enduring patterns. Human societies across time have faced
environmental pressures: droughts, floods, soil exhaustion, deforestation, the collapse of
biodiversity. These are not new challenges—though their scale today is unprecedented.
Likewise, the difficulties of living with difference—negotiating identity, belief, territory—
are not confined to our political present.
Conflicts between communities, castes, tribes, religions, and regions have long histories.
What changes are the stories we tell about them—and the systems and patterns of thinking
we build in response. Past is not a static domain.

What archaeology reveals is not a simple contrast between success and failure, but a
spectrum of responses: some adaptive, resilient, and creative; others destructive,
extractive, or short-sighted. Some societies built intricate systems of care and reciprocity.