free download - University Press of Colorado

Eight
Long-Term Vulnerability and Resilience: Three
Examples from Archaeological Study in the
Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico
Margaret C. Nelson, Michelle Hegmon, Keith W. Kintigh,
Ann P. Kinzig, Ben A. Nelson, John Marty Anderies, David A. Abbott,
Katherine A. Spielmann, Scott E. Ingram, Matthew A. Peeples,
Stephanie Kulow, Colleen A. Strawhacker, and Cathryn Meegan
Events during the last several years—such as Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake
in Haiti, the Southeast Asian tsunami, and continuing droughts in
Africa—vividly illustrate the vulnerability of human society to environmental
disturbances. That vulnerability lies in both the nature and magnitude of
hazards in the environment and in the configurations (institutions, policies,
practices) of human societies. We unintentionally play an essential role in creating
our vulnerabilities. The concepts of resilience and vulnerability in coupled
social- ecological systems have proved increasingly important for analyzing the
human dimensions of environmental disturbance and change ( Janssen and
Ostrom 2006)—in the sense of this book, how people experience “hazards.”
For example, strong earthquakes in some regions of the world result in limited
human suffering and infrastructure costs, while in others they are massively
devastating in human life and property loss. The same can be said for disease,
hurricane damage, and other occurrences we think of as “natural hazards.”
Human socie ties directly affect what a hazard is and how it is experienced.
In this chapter we illustrate the role analysis of archaeological data can play
to inform our understanding of resilience and vulnerability in coupled socialecological
systems with a long-term view of the interaction between society
and environment. Our research employs environmental and social information
from six regions within the southwestern United States and northern
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