Carole Crumley
Professor of Anthropology; Adjunct Professor in Research Labs of Archaeology
204-A/B Alumni Bldg
Campus Box 3115
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3115
919-962-5527 (phone)
919-962-1613 (fax)
crumley@unc.edu
Kräftriket 2B
SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
+46 (0)7.37.07.8612 (phone)
carole.crumley@stockholmresilience.su.se
B.A. University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), 1966
M.A. University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada), 1967
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin (Madison), 1972
Research And Teaching Interests
Carole Crumley’s current research seeks to identify and document the social, political, and economic elements of land use practice together with historical and environmental circumstance that combine to sustain a productive regional economy over the long term (centuries). Our larger project, underway for a over quarter century, pioneered an interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework termed historical ecology. Abundant data from a consistently productive temperate region with a long agrarian (6000 years) and industrial (2000 years) history (Burgundy, France) permit integrated analysis of socioeconomic and environmental change at local, regional, and global spatial scales and at time scales of year, decade, and century.
The project goal is to construct a model for the comparative study of enduring agrarian practice. Project objectives are to (1) trace the complex history of events and conditions that have both jeopardized and fostered sustainable land use strategies in an historically productive region, (2) identify key elements and relations of that practice, and (3) assess contemporary land use against the historical backdrop.
This project applies an integrated theoretical framework and mensurable concepts of diversity and flexibility to analyze landscape elements and land use strategies across time and space. The research can operationalize the problematic concept of sustainability, add a significant new historic dimension to the global sustainability dialogue, underscore the fundamental importance of region-based cultural knowledge and practice, and inform global and national agricultural policy decisions.
Through the integrated analysis of environmental and social information, researchers can read the results of human activities and choices that ultimately affect the entire system, including both human and non-human components. Varied sources of data enable hypotheses to be evaluated with greater independence. Since the success of mitigation is often determined by how well cultural practices have been understood, it is important to shape policy that can incorporate local and regional knowledge. Certain regions of the world are particularly sensitive to environmental changes that affect both human and other living populations. As a laboratory in which previous and current environmental experiments (intentional and unintentional) may be closely analyzed, such regions foster creative thinking about contemporary issues of risk and sustainability. The region of Burgundy, in east-central France, is remarkable in its environmental and historical complexity. An extensive database already exists, covering geology, biology, and the social sciences. Spatial data are aggregated into a Geographic Information System with over 100 layers. Available data include LANDSAT and SPOT imagery of the region (from 1979 onward), data from AIRES and other scanners, and digitized contemporary and historic maps (some going back as far as 1759).
Courses Offered (As Schedule Allows)
For current course listings, consult the Directory of Classes.
- Introduction to Anthropology
- History of Anthropology
- Formation of the State
- Ethnohistory
- European Societies
- Historial Ecology
- World Archaeology
- Archaeological Theory
- Teaching Anthropology
- Freshman Seminar in Complexity
- Complex Systems Graduate Seminar