Archaeologists are digging up 6,000-year-old buffalo jump sites and Iron Age cities to show modern governments how to build infrastructure that lasts. The project tackles a specific gap: policy makers rarely use archaeological evidence when designing governance systems, even though ancient societies managed resources through climate shifts, technological change, and political upheaval for millennia. Two workshops—one at Alberta’s Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, one in the UK focused on Jordan—will bring together archaeologists, Indigenous Elders, and contemporary policy scholars to compare ancient governance models with today’s challenges. The Alberta case examines how Indigenous heterarchical management kept a keystone hunting site stable for up to 10,000 years. The Jordan case traces how communities reused infrastructure from the Iron Age through Ottoman times to maintain local stability. If successful, the project could give resource managers and infrastructure planners concrete historical evidence on what governance structures actually survive long-term change—insights that might inform how we design water systems, energy grids, or transport networks to be flexible enough to outlast their original purpose.
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This Knowledge Synthesis Grant Project brings together archaeologists with scholars who study contemporary governance and policy. One of archaeology's major contributions to knowledge is its long-term perspective based on material evidence. In the late 19th and early-20th centuries, archaeological information was used to generate significant bodies of theory. As scholarly fields became more specialized, such cross-fertilization of knowledge became more difficult with non-archaeologists having less access to up-date archaeological information. Recently, scholars like Graeber and Wengrow have argued that the long-term perspective of archaeology can make a significant contribution to how we structure contemporary society. This project will seek to bring archaeology back into the conversation, contributing to the Challenge Theme of Past and Future Models of Governance. By emphasizing two significant case studies of past governance, one from Alberta and one from the Middle East, this project will offer historical perspectives on the sub-theme of "how has governance innovation progressed in the past, and what are pitfalls to avoid as we move forward." The proposed project will involve two workshops followed by the publication of the results in an open-access monograph, aimed at both archaeological specialists and non-specialists. One workshop will be held in Alberta and one in the United Kingdom, and emphasis will be placed on governance issues of relevance to both polities: governance resilience in the face of change (such as climate and technology) and governance flexibility in relation to changing social structures and the repurposing of infrastructure and resources. The workshops will provide historical evidence on what alternative governance models have been successful and, in conversation with scholars of the contemporary world, debate whether or not these can be applied in Canadian, British, or global contexts today. Both workshops will include scholars who are archaeological/historical specialists on the Great Plains or Jordan (the subjects of the case studies), scholars working on contemporary policy, knowledge users working in the heritage industry, Jordanian NGO workers, and Indigenous Elders. The two case studies offer different perspectives on the issues of governance innovation. The Alberta workshop will use Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump UNESCO World Heritage Site (HSIBJ) as the centrepiece for a conversation on Indigenous governance models on the Great Plains. HSIBJ functioned as a keystone institution for at least 6,000 years and possibly 10,000 years (based on our recent SSHRC-funded excavations). It offers lessons on how heterarchical management facilitates stability in the face of climatic and technological changes. This workshop will also allow us to bring Blackfoot Elders into the conversation, offering their insight into the problem as well as commentary on future governance directions. The second workshop will focus on the states and empires of the Middle East, using our excavations at Dhiban, Jordan and our SSHRC funded work at Busayra, Jordan for discussions on how governance and infrastructure reuse, as well as social flexibility, has facilitated community stability at the local level in the face of climatic and political change from the Iron Age to Ottoman times, integrating archaeological data with 20 years of experience working with local heritage NGOs. This project will help transfer knowledge that has been produced from archaeological work in the Great Plains and Jordan to other stakeholders. It will facilitate the incorporation of insight from Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers. The workshops will also be of interest to archaeologists studying historical governance issues.
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