Climate change, human health, and challenges to resilience in the Holocene

Abstract

Climate change is a significant threat to human health, especially for societies already confronted with rising social inequality, political and economic uncertainty, and a cascade of concurrent environmental challenges. Archaeological data about climate and environmental change provide a source of evidence about the potential challenges we face and the long-term outcomes of different short-term adaptive strategies employed in the past. Bioarchaeologists and paleopathologists study human health in the Holocene using evidence from archaeological human skeletons and mummified remains. Our research provides a basis for understanding the health impacts of past climate and environmental change within an evolutionary and biocultural framework. Here we provide bioarchaeological case studies from the published literature and discuss their relevance to research priorities outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We discuss the impact of environmental marginalization, famine and nutritional insufficiency, infectious disease, violence, and migration in the past. Although the magnitude and the pace of current global warming exceed the parameters of climate change experienced by past societies, bioarchaeology provides valuable insights into how variation in human historical and socio-cultural circumstances shaped epidemiological patterns across the millennia. It also provides clarity on the constraints of modernity, including limits to mobility and increasingly high levels of structural inequality. By demonstrating how past human societies perceived and experimented with solutions to climate and environmental challenges, bioarchaeology contributes to current prediction, planning, and policy-making efforts for a more equitable and sustainable future.

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ORCID for Sonia Zakrzewski: orcid.org/0000-0003-1796-065X

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