ARCHAEOWILD: Modern problems require ancient perspectives

Abstract

The usual answer to the age–old question of "why do we need archaeology today" often sounds like "because in order to tackle the modern problems, we need to understand the way past societies dealt with them". The project ARCHAEOWILD, funded by the Science Fund of Republic of Serbia, tries to understand the Holocene history of the Human – Wildlife conflict and coexistence. This will provide modern conservation and wildlife management experts with an elaborate overview of the spatial and temporal distribution of wild animals and plants in the Central Balkans from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages. Our goal is to use a large amount of biomolecular data, including aDNA and C/N stable isotopes, to provide a new understanding of the paleoecology of wild animals that were frequently hunted during the Holocene period, such as red deer and brown bear. We will also investigate the reasons behind the regional disappearance of globally extinct mammals such as the aurochs and European wild ass, while also examining the origins of exotic wildlife, such as fallow deer and leopards. On the other hand, another important question has been popping up regularly in the last couple of years. “Why do we need archaeologists”, which especially targets the younger generations on the verge of their academic careers. Universities have started shutting down archaeology departments, leaving fewer options for the newly graduates, who end up searching for a career change. Again, projects such as ARCHAEOWILD can be a good example of dealing with this type of issue, since six out of eight people employed were post–graduate students at the start of the project, while for the three of them this was their first job in the field.