Global-change science—the study of planetary-scale alterations of the Earth system—has embraced the Anthropocene as a framework for understanding human impacts on the planet, often defined as beginning with the “Great Acceleration” of global environmental changes in the 1950s (Steffen et al. Reference Steffen, Broadgate, Deutsch, Gaffney and Ludwig2015). This framing overlooks a deep and growing body of archaeological evidence documenting significant anthropogenic environmental change long before the mid-twentieth century or the advent of the Industrial Revolution (Kirch Reference Kirch2005; Nogue et al. Reference Nogué, Morueta-Holme, María Fernández-Palacios, Inger G., Anthony, Roberts and Peñuelas2025; Roberts et al. Reference Roberts, Hamilton and Piperno2021; Silva et al. Reference Silva, Coward, Davies, Elliott, Jenkins, Newton and Riris2022; Stephens et al. Reference Stephens, Fuller, Boivin, Rick, Gauthier and Kay2019). Despite its relevance, archaeology remains largely absent from the science of global environmental change (Smith Reference Smith2021). Why is this?
We argue that archaeology has an opportunity to transform global-change science by building on its local and regional strengths to produce robust evidence at planetary scales. It brings essential tools, theoretical models, and material evidence for understanding not only the long-term dynamics of an Earth system that includes humans but also the ways in which societies navigate major transitions, including the Great Acceleration itself (Boivin et al. Reference Boivin, Zeder, Fuller, Crowther, Larson, Erlandson, Denham and Petraglia2016; Smith and Zeder Reference Smith and Zeder2013). Most importantly, archaeology brings a perspective that acknowledges that different human groups impact the Earth System to differing degrees, to help move the Earth sciences beyond oversimplified and actively misleading portrayals of Earth’s transformation as a species-level phenomenon—the result of “humans” or “humanity.”
Archaeology’s material approach complements and challenges global narratives, providing context for how and why other Earth systems—from the biosphere to the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere—changed so drastically in the twentieth century and how deeper coevolutionary relationships shaped that trajectory (Redman Reference Redman1999). Moreover, archaeology’s traditional focus on local and regional scales—especially in collaboration with local, Indigenous, and descendant communities—is not a limitation but a strength. Archaeological evidence and Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge often provide complementary perspectives on long-term environmental change, linking material records with enduring cultural understandings of landscapes, ecosystems, and stewardship practices. Synthesizing these records at continental and global scales will reveal patterns and variation in human–environment interactions, challenge the “pristine myth” (Denevan Reference Denevan1992), and contribute to ongoing efforts on climate justice, historical accountability, and biodiversity (Ellis et al. Reference Ellis, Gauthier, Goldewijk, Bird, Boivin, Díaz and Fuller2021). Achieving this will require archaeologists to invest actively in synthetic approaches, develop shared data infrastructures, and align outputs with the needs and formats of Earth-system models (Altschul et al. Reference Altschul, Kintigh, Klein, Doelle, Hays-Gilpin, Herr and Kohler2017). By critically engaging with global-change science, rather than operating in parallel, archaeology can elevate its relevance, influence public narratives, and secure new streams of funding.
The Epochal Divide Narrative and Its Shortcomings
A brief discussion of a few key concepts emanating from Earth-system / global-change science brings the opportunity we see for archaeology into focus. The most fundamental concept is the Anthropocene itself. Despite being recently voted down as a formal geologic epoch by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Anthropocene remains a core concept for understanding global change and contemporary environmental challenges (Rockström et al. Reference Rockström, Martin, Ganopolski, Donges, Feulner, Marwan and Rahmstorf2026; Zalasiewicz, Thomas, et al. Reference Zalasiewicz, Thomas, Waters, Turner and Head2024). Bauer and Ellis (Reference Bauer and Ellis2018) discuss the history of the Anthropocene concept, noting that, although it necessarily represents a chronological period, it has been defined differently across disciplines, leading to differing arguments about when it began. For many social scientists and ecologists, the Anthropocene refers to the period of climate change and mass extinction associated with modernity; among Earth-system scientists, it references the period during which the human system began to impact other Earth systems; and among geostratigraphers, it is conceived as a horizon in the rock and sedimentary record where anthropogenic materials (aka archaeological remains!) have left unambiguous and permanent signatures. For example, Ruddiman’s (Reference Ruddiman2003) proposal that the Anthropocene began in the Middle Holocene, as human agricultural activities began to affect other Earth systems, was controversial in part because it concerned only one specific conceptualization.
Global-change science has settled on the “Great Acceleration” of the 1950s as the onset of the Anthropocene. This is indeed a period during which there was a rapid increase in human-driven environmental impacts, greenhouse gas emissions, industrial expansion, and population growth, which were reflected in numerous Earth-system indicators (Bauer and Ellis Reference Bauer and Ellis2018; Steffen et al. Reference Steffen, Broadgate, Deutsch, Gaffney and Ludwig2015). However, this framing implies that a phase transition from a “natural” Earth to an “anthropogenic” one took place around 1950, reinforcing the idea that the human species had a trivial impact on other Earth systems until very recently. This framing is visible in major publications and initiatives, including the “Planet under Pressure” conference series (CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security 2012), which emphasizes global metrics that only became comprehensible after World War II. Crucially, the paucity of standardized environmental data before this period has led to the implicit assumption that human impacts were negligible or insignificant prior to this time (Head et al. Reference Head, Steffen, Fagerlind, Waters, Poirier, Syvitski and Zalasiewicz2022; Zalasiewicz, Head, et al. Reference Zalasiewicz, Head, Waters, Turner, Haff, Summerhayes and Williams2024). This framing overlooks the fact that the Great Acceleration is the outcome of a long-term coevolutionary process involving humans and other Earth systems, and that we are unlikely to solve the new problems it has created in the absence of deeper knowledge of these more basic processes (see Renn Reference Renn2022). This is precisely the kind of knowledge that archaeology generates.
A second key concept is the technosphere. This was first developed by Peter Haff (Reference Haff2014), who drew on complex systems science to recognize that, at a global scale, human technology is an emergent, self-organizing system not under anyone’s control. He suggested that the dynamics of the technosphere are quasi-autonomous, in that many of its components do not directly influence the behavior of individual humans; that most humans cannot significantly influence its dynamics; that most humans are obligated to perform at least some tasks that support its metabolism; and that its only requirement is that it provide an environment in which humans can survive and function. Haff’s (Reference Haff2014) view acknowledges, for example, that the knowledge needed to create complex products and services is not stored in individual minds but is distributed through a network of interacting individuals, with sufficient redundancy that no single person can control it.
It is true that various Earth spheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere) have emerged separately in Earth’s history and that their evolutions are interrelated. It is also worthwhile to consider humanity as an additional sphere that has become entangled in the evolution of the others (Renn Reference Renn2022). However, the technosphere concept frames humans as a single, undifferentiated species—a geological force with uniform psychology and values—rather than as members of diverse societies with varying practices, technologies, political and military power, and environmental relationships (Boivin et al. Reference Boivin, Braje and Rick2024; Malm and Hornborg Reference Malm and Hornborg2014). The concept makes human impacts comprehensible at the species level and on a planetary scale, often by flattening history into eras defined by species-level properties. As a result, archaeological research on the distribution of human–environment relationships across various world regions over time is often ignored. This is a serious shortcoming because, as every archaeologist knows, societies vary in their contributions to global change, both in the past and in the present.
A deeper shortcoming of the technosphere concept is the notion that accelerating human impacts are a simple byproduct of an expanding technosphere that no one controls (Zalasiewicz et al. Reference Zalasiewicz, Williams, Waters, Barnosky, Palmesino, Rönnskog and Edgeworth2017). Although it is appropriate to view humanity’s expanding technological knowledge as increasing the scale and scope of Earth-system impacts, recent reviews of time-series data on air quality, energy production, deforestation, food production, biodiversity, plastic pollution, and fisheries paint a more nuanced picture. In many cases, humans have not only decreased their per capita environmental impacts but also reduced the overall impact of their activities, despite continued population growth, through the combined application of technological innovation, regulation, and changes in land use (Ritchie Reference Ritchie2024). The rapid decrease in the cost of renewable energy sources, to the point that they are now less expensive than fossil fuels, demonstrates that technological change and human relationships with other Earth systems are directed by human agency and values. In light of this, a robust and mature approach to global-change science needs to consider how all dimensions of human systems—not just technology—interact to improve or degrade the functioning of other Earth systems. The only way to achieve this is through studies of interrelating human and Earth systems over long time scales and across heterogeneous societies. This is what archaeologists do. And it is what global-change science needs.
A final concept is the technofossil. Zalasiewicz and others (Reference Zalasiewicz, Williams, Waters, Barnosky and Haff2014) note that artifacts created by humans are a form of “trace fossil” that allows geologists to characterize and date sedimentary deposits, complementing more conventional fossils. But they note that because artifacts have other properties, they are better characterized as “technofossils, a biological innovation that may be exploited to provide ultra-high resolution geological dating and correlation in technostratigraphy, after the concept of the technosphere,” which “may be of use to help characterize the deposits of a potential Anthropocene epoch” (Zalasiewicz et al. Reference Zalasiewicz, Williams, Waters, Barnosky and Haff2014:35–36). In other words, Earth-system scientists are reinventing the archaeological record in their own language so they can have their own conversation about it and use their own funding to study it, without input from archaeologists. They note, for example, that artifacts are often produced using materials that are rare in nature, such as the decomposed materials themselves, which can be used to date sedimentary deposits (aka geoarchaeology). They also note that artifacts change in form over time, making it feasible to date deposits based on these changes (aka seriation). And they note that the rate of change in human material culture has accelerated over time and now outpaces biological evolution (aka evolutionary archaeology). The authors seem to believe they are the first to notice these properties of the archaeological record, and frustratingly, they do not cite any archaeological studies in their bibliography.
Why do some global-change scientists feel the need to reinvent archaeology from scratch instead of partnering with archaeologists to advance their work? Despite important advances by archaeologists in understanding human–environment interactions around the world on local and regional scales, archaeologists need to do more to apply their knowledge and skills toward a better understanding of the planetary-scale challenges of the Anthropocene.
Deep-Time Anthropogenic Change
Archaeologists are already doing work that is relevant to global-change science. Archaeologists have long emphasized how preindustrial people transformed biodiversity and altered atmospheric gas concentrations and other environmental variables (Boivin et al. Reference Boivin, Zeder, Fuller, Crowther, Larson, Erlandson, Denham and Petraglia2016; Kirch Reference Kirch2005; Redman Reference Redman1999; Ruddiman Reference Ruddiman2003). This work has accelerated during the past two decades, particularly in response to debates over the date of onset of the Anthropocene (Zalasiewicz, Thomas, et al. Reference Zalasiewicz, Thomas, Waters, Turner and Head2024). For example, archaeologists and other researchers have drawn on archaeological data demonstrating an onset of continental-scale impacts to biodiversity associated with the (1) initial spread of humans (Andermann et al. Reference Andermann, Faurby, Turvey, Antonelli and Silvestro2020) and global human impact approximately 10,000 years ago, associated with plant and animal domestication (Smith and Zeder Reference Smith and Zeder2013); or (2) at 5,000 years ago, with methane greenhouse gas emissions from rice farming and livestock tending (Ruddiman et al. Reference Ruddiman, Feng, Vavrus and Kutzbach2020). Others have argued that the archaeological record forms a global anthropogenic or archaeological stratigraphy formed over thousands of years (Edgeworth et al. Reference Edgeworth, Richter, Waters, Haff, Neal and Price2015), or that megafaunal extinctions (Barnosky et al. Reference Barnosky, Koch, Feranec, Wing and Shabel2004; Braje and Erlandson Reference Braje and Erlandson2013), other anthropogenic soil types (Erlandson Reference Erlandson2013), and the Columbian exchange / Orbis spike (Lewis and Maslin Reference Lewis and Maslin2015) all provide evidence of human impacts prior to 1950 that are detectable on a global scale.
From a global-change perspective, a few key studies clearly demonstrate that anthropogenic global impacts predate the Great Acceleration. Recent work on lead pollution documented in Arctic ice cores shows the strong influence of Roman silver and other metal and ore mining that was present throughout Europe and detectable as a global phenomenon over 2,000 years ago (Hong et al. Reference Hong, Candelone, Patterson and Boutron1994; McConnell et al. Reference McConnell, Chellman, Plach, Wensman, Plunkett, Stohl and Smith2025). Rice agriculture in regions such as China, Thailand, and India significantly transformed local ecosystems through practices such as forest clearance, controlled burning, and the widespread adoption of domesticated rice, contributing to atmospheric methane increases between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago (Fuller and Weisskopf Reference Fuller and Weisskopf2011; Ruddiman et al. Reference Ruddiman, Guo, Zhou, Wu and Yu2008). Over the last 10,000 years, Indigenous peoples around the world have used fire to enhance the biodiversity of local and regional ecosystems, with cumulative global effects on terrestrial ecosystems that continue to accelerate today (Ellis et al. Reference Ellis, Gauthier, Goldewijk, Bird, Boivin, Díaz and Fuller2021; Kelly et al. Reference Kelly, Giljohann, Duane, Aquilué, Archibald, Batllori and Bennett2020; Thompson et al. Reference Thompson, Wright, Ivory, Choi, Nightingale, Mackay and Schilt2021). These patterns and processes are also apparent on a global scale in coastal and marine ecosystems, such as evidence of human overfishing, sustainable resource management, and aquaculture that accelerated over the past 3,000 to 4,000 years (Erlandson and Rick Reference Erlandson and Rick2010; Rick et al. Reference Rick, Kirch, Erlandson and Fitzpatrick2013; Rogers Reference Rogers2024). These cumulative local and regional impacts are also evidenced in the tremendous ways that people shaped past animal populations through overhunting, habitat alteration, displacement, and other variables (Boivin et al. Reference Boivin, Zeder, Fuller, Crowther, Larson, Erlandson, Denham and Petraglia2016). Despite these and numerous other examples, the archaeological record of preindustrial global change continues to be ignored by scholars in the global-change-science community (Bauer and Ellis Reference Bauer and Ellis2018; Braje Reference Braje2015).
Central but Sidelined
Archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to global-change science, and there have been calls for archaeologists to do so for over 20 years (e.g., van der Leeuw and Redman Reference van der Leeuw and Redman2002). Archaeology offers a deep-time perspective on human–earth-system dynamics, emphasizing not just that humans impact the planet but that different societies have done so in radically different ways (Ellis et al. Reference Ellis, Gauthier, Goldewijk, Bird, Boivin, Díaz and Fuller2021). This perspective also builds on decades of work in historical ecology, which has emphasized the coproduction of landscapes by human and environmental processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales (Balée Reference Balée2013; Crumley Reference Crumley1994). Archaeology’s focus on the interaction of social, political, economic, and environmental systems also allows for a more complete understanding of how environmental change is produced, experienced, and managed across cultures and time periods (Smith Reference Smith2011).
Site-based and regional archaeological data, accumulated over decades of research, provide high-resolution insights into past land use, subsistence strategies, settlement patterns, and resource management. These datasets are often spatially and temporally precise, and in many cases, they are exactly the kinds of records needed to calibrate and validate Earth system models. For instance, several studies have shown that long-term patterns of anthropogenic methane emissions from agriculture and stock rearing cannot be fully understood without archaeological data (Fuller et al. Reference Fuller and Weisskopf2011; Ruddiman et al. Reference Ruddiman, Guo, Zhou, Wu and Yu2008). Whether or not these early emissions had a major effect on global climate remains debated, but their existence is no longer in question. Despite this potential, with notable exceptions (e.g., Morrison et al. Reference Morrison, Hammer, Boles, Madella, Whitehouse, Gaillard and Bates2021), archaeological evidence remains largely absent from the frameworks and datasets driving global environmental change research (Smith Reference Smith2021). This disconnect is due in part to disciplinary barriers. Archaeological research has traditionally focused on local and regional scales, and efforts to synthesize data across broader spatial and temporal ranges have often been hindered by inconsistent data standards and limited data sharing, especially in regions where concerns about looting or misrepresentation of the heritage of colonized peoples are acute (Gupta et al. Reference Gupta, Martindale, Supernant and Elvidge2023; Smith Reference Smith2021).
At the same time, Earth science concepts define humanity as a monolithic force, abstracting away cultural and historical variation in favor of generalized metrics. In doing so, they often bypass the socially contextualized insights that archaeology provides. Rather than engaging with archaeological method and theory, these concepts offer simplified proxies for human activity that are legible to Earth system scientists but detached from the lived histories and social dynamics that produced them. Bridging this gap will require intentional efforts to scale up archaeological data, align formats and standards with Earth system science, and foster genuine interdisciplinary collaboration on a global scale. The conceptual and empirical foundations are already in place; what is needed now is a shared framework for integration.
Integrating Archaeology into Global-Change Science
To realize the full potential of archaeology in global-change research, archaeology needs a bit of reinvention, including some basic changes in the culture of data production and sharing. Although archaeological research has long been rich in site-level detail, there are few mechanisms for scaling up these insights in ways that align with the data infrastructure and modeling needs of Earth system science. Other disciplines offer useful examples: paleontology, for instance, benefits from large-scale databases such as the Paleobiology Database (PBDB), which aggregates fossil records to support analyses of biodiversity and climate change through time (Paleobiology Database 2000). The emergence of bioinformatics as a distinct subfield of biology, largely to handle the torrent of new genetic information, is also instructive.
Although archaeoinformatics exists, global-change science has yet to fully embrace it as an essential component of their discipline. Concerns over data sovereignty, misuse, and looting—which to us seem increasingly misplaced in our interconnected, high-information world—have fostered a culture of caution that limits data sharing and inhibits global-scale synthesis (Nicholson et al. Reference Nicholson, Kansa, Gupta and Fernandez2023). These concerns, especially long overdue issues surrounding Indigenous data sovereignty (Walter et al. Reference Walter, Lovett, Maher, Williamson, Prehn, Bodkin-Andrews and Lee2021), should be addressed. But without new strategies for responsibly aggregating and contextualizing archaeological data, archaeology risks continued marginalization in high-stakes global research that will impact how humanity moves forward (Ortman and Altschul Reference Ortman and Altschul2023). Meeting this challenge will require investment not only in research infrastructure but also in professional training. Data stewardship, digital standards, and archaeological informatics should become core components of archaeological education and practice, including within cultural resource management, where much of the world’s archaeological data are generated.
Promising models for synthesis do exist within the field. The Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis (CfAS) has been instrumental in supporting collaborative, data-driven projects that cross regional and thematic boundaries (Altschul et al. Reference Altschul, Kintigh, Klein, Doelle, Hays-Gilpin, Herr and Kohler2017). A notable example is the Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) Project (Bogaard et al. Reference Bogaard, Ortman, Birch, Quequezana, Chirikure, Crema and Cruz2024), which brought together researchers from across the globe to analyze patterns of economic inequality reflected in housing. The resulting synthesis not only advanced comparative understanding of inequality across ancient societies but also culminated in a high-profile special issue in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Kohler et al. Reference Kohler, Bogaard and Ortman2025). Another good example is the recent integration of cyberSW (www.cybersw.org), a data service that provides information on Indigenous settlement history in the greater US Southwest, with SKOPE, a data service that provides paleoenvironmental reconstructions. As a result, it is now possible to directly examine relationships between settlement and climate history across the entire US Southwest, building from site-level data and the network of regional tree-ring chronologies. In the realm of plant domestication, archaeologists and other researchers have built robust, searchable databases that allow global studies of crop origins, dispersals, and environmental impact (Fuller et al. Reference Fuller, Kingwell-Banham, Lucas, Murphy and Stevens2015), and similar calls have been made for zooarchaeology (LeFebvre et al. Reference LeFebvre, Brenskelle, Wieczorek, Kansa, Kansa, Wallis, King, Emery and Guralnick2019). Other collaborations, such as the ArchaeoGLOBE project, offer other paths forward for global synthesis and analysis (Stephens et al. Reference Stephens, Fuller, Boivin, Rick, Gauthier and Kay2019). These examples demonstrate both the feasibility and the potential of structured archaeological synthesis and serve as compelling templates for future work at the intersection of archaeology and global-change science.
The path forward involves standardizing metadata and aligning archaeological data formats with the requirements of Earth system models. This requires close collaboration with climate scientists, geographers, and computational modelers to ensure compatibility and usability. Building international consortia, much like those that exist for global biodiversity or land-use research, can help ensure spatial and temporal coverage while respecting local expertise and ethical considerations. Equally important is reframing archaeology’s relevance to pressing social and ecological challenges. Archaeological records reveal that human impacts on the environment have always been uneven: different societies have altered landscapes in different ways, with varying consequences for biodiversity, sustainability, and resilience (Boivin and Crowther Reference Boivin and Crowther2021; Fisher et al. Reference Fisher, Hill and Feinman2009; Kirch Reference Kirch2005; Rick and Sandweiss Reference Rick and Sandweiss2020). Recognizing this diversity is essential not only for refining climate models but also for challenging both the persistent myth of a “pristine” preindustrial world and the idea that all human societies have contributed equally to planetary degradation (Boivin and Crowther Reference Boivin and Crowther2021; Malm and Hornborg Reference Malm and Hornborg2014).
By centering social justice and cultural variability in its contributions, archaeology can offer a powerful corrective to the dominant, homogenizing narratives in global-change science—narratives that often obscure the political, historical, and economic conditions that shape environmental outcomes. The task ahead is not just technical. It is intellectual and ethical. And it is one that archaeology is well equipped to take on.
Opportunities and Challenges Ahead
Integrating archaeology into global-change science offers substantial benefits for both fields. For archaeology, the opportunities are both intellectual and practical. Engaging with global-change frameworks can provide access to major funding streams typically reserved for climate science, artificial intelligence, and computational modeling. These are resources that have historically been out of reach for much of the archaeological community. More importantly, this integration enhances the relevance of archaeological research, positioning it as a core contributor to interdisciplinary efforts to understand and respond to environmental change. It also opens the door for deeper collaboration with Earth and environmental scientists, building bridges across disciplines that have often operated in parallel rather than in concert.
For global-change science, the inclusion of archaeological data and perspectives enriches the foundation on which models and projections are built. Archaeology can provide improved historical baselines that extend beyond the narrow window of instrumental or documentary records, revealing how diverse human societies have shaped and adapted to environmental conditions over millennia (Boivin and Crowther Reference Boivin and Crowther2021; Braje Reference Braje2015). This allows for more culturally informed models and richer causal narratives—ones that reflect not only the scale of human impact but also its variability and complexity.
This is especially critical for climate modeling, which depends on accurate historical data to “train” models and generate reliable future projections. Earth system models such as IMAGE, which uses the HYDE (History Database of the Global Environment) land-use model, require highly structured and consistent inputs (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency 2026). In one recent project, a member of the HYDE team explicitly outlined the format and parameters needed to incorporate archaeological data (Stephens et al. Reference Stephens, Fuller, Boivin, Rick, Gauthier and Kay2019). Adapting archaeological data to fit those needs was technically demanding, but it worked. And it demonstrated that, although challenging, this kind of integration is both possible and productive when archaeologists and modelers collaborate directly. The lesson is clear: archaeological insights can, and should, inform the future-oriented work of global-change science. Achieving this goal requires new tools, shared standards, and a willingness to step outside disciplinary comfort zones. The payoff is a more complete, grounded, and socially attuned understanding of how humans shape the planet and how we might shape its future.
Conclusion: From the Margins to the Mainstream
Archaeology now faces a rare opportunity—one of its most consequential ever—to shape how anthropogenic global change is understood and addressed. As funding and attention continue to flow toward climate, sustainability, and AI-driven modeling, archaeology stands to contribute essential insights into the long-term human dimensions of planetary change. However, archaeologists must be ready to engage at scale, with the tools, standards, and partnerships necessary to participate in global data frameworks and modeling platforms.
A natural next step is to launch a pilot project that links existing site- and regional-scale archaeological data to Earth-system-level data systems and related models and that provides ways to transcend historical concerns around data sovereignty, looting, et cetera. This would not only demonstrate archaeology’s technical capacity to contribute but also establish the protocols and collaborations needed for broader integration. Doing so would also make it harder for global-change science to overlook the human past and easier for it to incorporate archaeology’s more nuanced, culturally informed, and deeply grounded understandings of long-term environmental change.
At present, much of global-change modeling is conducted at a distance, operating in a space where people are numbers and landscapes are raster grids. Modelers and data scientists, usually working far from field contexts, make high-level decisions—such as how different human populations interact differently with different ecosystems (e.g., the use of fire)—that increasingly influence public policy and global action (Smith et al. Reference Smith, Perkins, Mistry, Bilbao, Bird, Christianson and de Freitas2025). In contrast, archaeologists work face-to-face with the material traces of past lives, sometimes literally holding human remains in their hands. They contend with the emotional, ethical, and historical weight of human experience and their connections with people living today. This grounding gives archaeology a fundamentally different relationship to the past—one that is urgently needed as we plan for the future.
When politicians seek answers to global change, they rarely turn to archaeologists. Archaeology’s relevance is not questioned; it is simply not considered. The discipline is absent from the room in which decisions are made—not because it lacks insight, but because it has not yet claimed its seat at the table. Kohler and Rockman (Reference Kohler and Rockman2020) discuss this issue with respect to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, and we believe many of the same issues apply here. Given the realities of anthropogenic global change, the world needs archaeology, and archaeology needs to make its value legible, its data accessible, and its voice heard.
Acknowledgments
This research was made possible through support from the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis and the Center for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology at the University of Colorado Boulder. We are especially grateful for their commitment to collaborative, synthesis-driven research, which provided the intellectual and organizational framework for this project. The authors used artificial intelligence tools (e.g., Grammarly) to assist with language editing and manuscript preparation. These tools did not contribute to the development of the ideas, analysis, or interpretations, which remain solely those of the authors.
Funding Statement
This work was supported by the Center for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology at the University of Colorado Boulder through institutional salary support provided to the lead author. No specific external grant funding was received for this research.
Data Availability Statement
No new data were generated or analyzed in support of this article. Data sharing is therefore not applicable.
Competing Interests
The authors declare none.
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