The biodiversity crisis, the wild and the archaeological imagination
The biodiversity crisis, the wild and the archaeological imagination
Global biodiversity is decreasing at an alarming rate, and Britain is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet. This matters to archaeologists as it places limitations on our personal experience of ‘nature’ and damages the collective archaeological imagination, diluting our capacity to envisage the richness and diversity of the past worlds we seek to understand. Here, the author argues that we must learn, from contemporary biodiversity projects, animate Indigenous worldviews and enmeshed human-nonhuman ecosystems, to rewild our minds—for the sake of the past worlds we study and the future worlds that our narratives help shape.
Britain & Ireland, Environment, Landscape Archaeology, Rewilding, Western Europe, biodiversity, imagination, environment, rewilding, landscape
Collar, Anna
68e13a75-9b92-4557-aeea-5cd87728cf46
Collar, Anna
68e13a75-9b92-4557-aeea-5cd87728cf46
Abstract
Global biodiversity is decreasing at an alarming rate, and Britain is now one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet. This matters to archaeologists as it places limitations on our personal experience of ‘nature’ and damages the collective archaeological imagination, diluting our capacity to envisage the richness and diversity of the past worlds we seek to understand. Here, the author argues that we must learn, from contemporary biodiversity projects, animate Indigenous worldviews and enmeshed human-nonhuman ecosystems, to rewild our minds—for the sake of the past worlds we study and the future worlds that our narratives help shape.
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the-biodiversity-crisis-the-wild-and-the-archaeological-imagination
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Accepted/In Press date: 15 September 2025
e-pub ahead of print date: 10 December 2025
Keywords:
Britain & Ireland, Environment, Landscape Archaeology, Rewilding, Western Europe, biodiversity, imagination, environment, rewilding, landscape
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Local EPrints ID: 508517
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/508517
ISSN: 0003-598X
PURE UUID: c389551b-4c9f-4810-842b-14c26978390f
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Date deposited: 26 Jan 2026 17:37
Last modified: 27 Jan 2026 03:21
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