The Remembered Land: Surviving Sea-level Rise after the Last Ice Age

Description

How did small-scale societies in the past experience and respond to sea-level rise? What happened when their dwellings, hunting grounds and ancestral lands were lost under an advancing tide? This book asks these questions in relation to the hunter-gatherer inhabitants of a lost prehistoric land; a land that became entirely inundated and now lies beneath the North Sea. It seeks to understand how these people viewed and responded to their changing environment, suggesting that people were not struggling against nature, but simply getting on with life - with all its trials and hardships, satisfactions and pleasures, and with a multitude of choices available. At the same time, this loss of land - the loss of places and familiar locales where myths were created and identities formed - would have profoundly affected people's sense of being. This book moves beyond the static approach normally applied to environmental change in the past to capture its nuances. Through this, a richer and more complex story of past sea-level rise develops; a story that may just have resonance for us today.

Jim Leary lectures in Archaeology at the University of Reading, UK. Formerly a prehistorian with English Heritage and the 2012 'Field Archaeologist in Residence' at Cambridge University, his publications include The Story of Silbury Hill (with David Field, 2010).

[Leary's] engaging book combines an effective synthesis of previous research with thought-provoking analysis, deftly conveyed with an evocative, imaginative turn of phrase. * Current Archaeology * A welcome fresh perspective ... [Leary] points the way for a new understanding of mesolithic lives - and what rising seas may bring today. * British Archaeology * [The Remembered Land] is a fine demonstration of the need for cognition and imagination in the study of landscapes of any date ... This is a really good book, full of ideas and provocative new ways of thinking. * Landscapes * Leary encourages us to think about the human scale and to consider how this can profoundly shape responses ... to environmental change ... [He] poetically and powerfully makes the point. * Antiquity * Written in a clear and readable style ... This book is inspiring reading not only for professional archaeologists but for all those interested in climate change and its past and future consequences. * Kuml: Journal of the Jutland Archaeological Society (Bloomsbury translation) * Jim Leary paints a fascinating portrait of the sunken landscape of the North Sea and the human consequences of sea level rise after the Ice Age. This evocatively written, imaginative essay brings a wide range of highly specialized research to a general audience while causing you to think about the long-term consequences of climate change. A provocative, thought-provoking book to read either when afloat on the North Sea or when contemplating its heaving waves. -- Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California, USA, and author of The Attacking Ocean (Bloomsbury, 2013) Leary's imaginative, well-constructed work provides a unique insight into the environmental history of the North Sea. The author breathes life back into a forgotten land, flora, fauna, and people, connecting that which cannot be seen to the present as well as shedding light on the process that allows for this reconstruction. ... His holistic approach to understanding past environmental change touches upon numerous facets and allows readers to see into the complexity of change and its long-term impact. ... This impressive work is a welcome addition to the understanding of the complex history of environmental change in and beyond the North Sea since the last Ice Age. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. * CHOICE *