Towards a Model for Sociocultural Transformation: Anthropocentric Approaches to Resilience, Collapse, and Resistance

Abstract

Abstract When studying ancient societies, it is inevitable that eventually the theme of social collapse will arise. Archaeology has long been concerned with the theme of resilience, collapse, and resistance, triggered by either external factors such as conquest and natural disasters, or from internal factors such as environmental mismanagement, political or economic calamity, or sociocultural revolutions. Most approaches to the themes of resilience, collapse, and resistance have primarily relied on socioecological models that results in binarized explications of the archaeological record, framing evidence in competing terms of collapse and resilience: either societies endured collapse through a series of choices that resulted in either failure or success on the one hand or that societies overcame problems and exhibited resilience by adapting to new pressures or moving to new environments on the other hand. This paper seeks to explore concepts of resilience, collapse, and resistance through an anthropocentric rather than ecocentric perspective, touching on the theories used to construct the ideas of collapse, resilience, and resistance, with a particular focus on sociocultural aspects. Finally, this paper suggests a model which centers on the notion of sociocultural transformation, enculturation and hybridity placed into direct dialogue with resilience, collapse, and resistance.