Modern approaches to a longstanding problem

Adapting to a changing climate was a problem for ancient humans, too. Archaeologist Tim Kohler, an SFI external professor, and colleagues are looking to the past for clues about how to prepare for an uncertain climate future.

In a paper appearing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “21st Century Approaches to Ancient Problems,” the team applies a suite of tools from complex systems science to centuries of demographic and climatic data, outlining computational approaches for archaeologists to move beyond “merely noting coincidences of social and climate change.”