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Increasingly, archaeologists are concerned with the here and now. This is evident in a new study, led by researchers from the University of York, which has examined how our discipline can deal with modern materials. In particular, they consider the conundrum of plastics, which represent an environmental threat but are also important evidence of human impacts on the world.
As highlighted in a paper recently published in Cambridge Prisms: Plastics (https://doi.org/10.1017/plc.2025.10028), while much research has been directed towards the impact plastics are having on the health of our planet, far less attention has been paid to the fact that plastics are also part of the archaeological record – representing a new ‘Plastic Age’.
It has already been shown that microplastics are able to infiltrate older archaeological deposits through the water supply (see CA 411). But deposits of plastic are also problematic in that they do not always behave like ‘normal’ archaeological artefacts, instead often ending up in far-distant secondary locations that have no bearing on their production or use. How, then, can we use this record to address the ‘wicked problem’ of environmental health (CA 422)? The researchers suggest that the first step is to view plastics as an archive, while the second step is to better understand how that archive is created. To do this, they use earlier models (such as Michael Schiffer’s ‘Behavioural Archaeology’ and Robert Foley’s ‘Off-site Archaeology’) as a framework for future analysis. For example, they show that plastics are distributed along two axes. In the first, horizontal axis, plastics are manufactured and distributed into industrial and domestic settings, where they undergo degradation from daily use; eventually they are discarded and enter into the archaeological record, where they undergo further degradation. At this point they may be transported ‘off-site’ either intentionally through waste management or unintentionally through loss, littering, or natural processes. In addition to this horizontal movement, there is a vertical axis, with plastics making their way into the atmosphere, and even into space. Concluding their paper, the team argue: ‘Plastics represent waste that threatens environmental health, but they are also evidence of human activities… That does not mean that the types of plastics we describe in this article should necessarily be preserved. However, perhaps they should be treated more as an archive, and recorded in ways that allow for the analysis and interpretation of those human behaviours responsible for creating them.’
Text: Kathryn Krakowka
