"Fire and the Anthropocene: A Long-Term Perspective on Ecological Creativity".

Department of Anthropology & Archaeology, University of Calgary Center for Theoretical Study, Charles University & The Czech Academy of Sciences Department member Dr. Matthew Walls and project partner Dr. Petr Pokorny (Center for Theoretical Study), hosted a symposium and project meeting this past week.

The purpose of the meeting was to enrich interdisciplinary methods for identifying past fire-management practices and their long term ecological consequences. The meeting connected Canadian and Czech researchers in the fields of archaeology, paleoecology and paleogenetics and challenged them to combine methods and develop partnerships that assess human agency in ecological succession. The meeting was problem-oriented and focused on comparing the fire-histories of Western Alberta and Northern Bohemia. Discussion centered on the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and the dramatic changes in vegetation and fauna that took place as steppe tundra was eventually transformed into the mosaics that still characterize these regions today. Participants in the symposium lead methodological advances, in archaeology, palynology, sedimentary DNA, proteomics, which significantly increase the resolution through which human action and environmental change through time.

Important and interesting interdisciplinary collaboration!