Agenda

Culture Contact and Human-Environment Interaction along the Eastern Rim of the Tibetan Plateau

Environments, Societies and Histories of East Asia Lecture Series

Culture contact and human-environment interaction are topics of general interest due to modern-day phenomena such as globalization, migration, and human responses to climate change and needing to face extreme environments and climatic events. Although the process of globalization has sped up considerably over the last decades, recent research has suggested that the modern and the ancient world may not be fundamentally different as far as mechanisms and preconditions of inter-cultural contact are concerned. Prehistoric and early historic communities can therefore serve as useful case studies to reflect on general mechanisms of inter-cultural exchange that are of great interest to modern day societies as well. Furthermore, how humans in the past reacted to climate change or adapted to various types of environments can provide insights into how humanity might face the current climate crisis and move into the future. Being a marginal environment, the Eastern Rim of the Tibetan Plateau is a particularly suitable case study, providing insights into how people lived in this challenging region, how they moved through it, establishing and keeping up connections across considerable distances and developing social connections far beyond the scope of single settlements or valleys. This talk will introduce the highly diverse archaeological material from the Eastern Rim of the Tibetan Plateau, suggesting what it shows us about past humans, their movements and interactions with one another and their local environment, and what we may learn from this about possibilities for the present and future of humanity.

Speaker: Anke Hein - University of Oxford