RECEN800 - Long-term Environmental Resilience in Cyprus: The Last 800 Years of Human-animal Interactions With a View to The Future
Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean are particularly impacted by the current climate crisis and future projections suggest increased negative impacts. Mitigation of and adaptation to this reality are thus pressing needs. Environmental change, natural or anthropogenic, has been a recurrent challenge that Cypriots faced and responded to with a diversity of adaptations. Archaeology is uniquely poised to contribute long-term records of human adaptations to environmental change.
The archaeological record of the last 800 years, especially on human-animal interactions, remains unexplored in Cyprus. Project RECEN800 aspires to establish a detailed record of human-animal interactions over the last 800 years, integrate it with climatic and historical records over the same period and reconstruct environmentally sustainable resilient management strategies that can tackle current and future environmental problems.
This is achievable through a novel interdisciplinary methodology, spearheaded by zooarchaeology and complemented by stable isotopes, dental microwear, data from historical sources and ethnography. Zooarchaeology documents the physical aspects of animal management (species composition, mortality, sex ratios, size/shape, etc.), stable isotope and dental microwear analyses provide further insights into animal management (seasonality of births and diet), historical sources contribute data on human-animal/plant interactions that are absent from or complement archaeological data, while ethnographic interviews first-hand experiences and data on 20th century management. These lines of evidence enable a holistic approach that encompasses economic, social, cultural practices and environmental management, which is necessary due to the diversity of factors shaping human-animal interactions. Publications, workshops and meetings with stakeholders, as well as a diverse public outreach programme, maximise the project’s impact and encourage adoption of its findings in future actions to mitigate the ongoing environmental crisis.
CyI Principal Investigator
Angelos Hadjikoumis
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tel. +357 22 397 536
Additional Info
- Acronym: RECEN800
- Website: https://recen800.cyi.ac.cy
- Center: STARC
- Funding Source: RECEN800 is funded by the programme RESTART ‘Excellence Hubs – New’ of the Research & Innovation Foundation of Cyprus. Proposal number: EXCELLENCE/0524/0320
- CyI Funding: n/a
- Funding Period: 24 months
- Starting Date: June 2025
- End Date: May 2027
- Coordinator: The Cyprus Institute
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Partners:
Cardiff University
The University of the Highlands and Islands
University of Haifa
