T. R. Kidder, "Greater than All of the Forces of Nature? Humans as Agents of China’s Environmental Change 5000-2000 Years Ago"

Greater than All of the Forces of Nature? Humans as Agents of China’s Environmental Change 5000-2000 Years Ago and Its Relevance for the Modern World
T. R. Kidder, Washington University, St. Louis

Humans are the leading cause of environmental change today. The Anthropocene hypothesis suggests we now have a greater effect on the environment than all of the forces of nature. While the Anthropocene is often claimed to start ca. 1750 CE, evidence shows that these changes began considerably earlier in China. Using multiple lines of evidence from the Yellow River region, T. R. Kidder explore how early Chinese civilizations manipulated their environments and the ways these changes contributed to the collapse of Western Han. This analysis provides a perspective on contemporary environmental change in China and elsewhere.

Tristram R. Kidder is the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor and chairman of the department of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his PhD in anthropology at Harvard University. Kidder focuses his research on the development of social complexity in North America, geoarchaeology of large river systems, and the archaeology of climate and environmental change. He has active research projects in several parts of eastern North America and in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in east-central China. His current research examines the effects of global change on large river valleys, such as the Mississippi and Yellow Rivers, and subsequent influences on human cultures through time. He has been especially interested in how climate, environment, and human behavior interact to shape human history over the last ten thousand years.