Academic Affairs, University of Houston System, Houston, TX 77006.
Academic Affairs and Provost, Office of the Provost, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77006.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Aug;120(31):e2211558120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2211558120. Epub 2023 Jul 24.
Urban adaptation to climate change is a global challenge requiring a broad response that can be informed by how urban societies in the past responded to environmental shocks. Yet, interdisciplinary efforts to leverage insights from the urban past have been stymied by disciplinary silos and entrenched misconceptions regarding the nature and diversity of premodern human settlements and institutions, especially in the case of prehispanic Mesoamerica. Long recognized as a distinct cultural region, prehispanic Mesoamerica was the setting for one of the world's original urbanization episodes despite the impediments to communication and resource extraction due to the lack of beasts of burden and wheeled transport, and the limited and relatively late use of metal implements. Our knowledge of prehispanic urbanism in Mesoamerica has been significantly enhanced over the past two decades due to significant advances in excavating, analyzing, and contextualizing archaeological materials. We now understand that Mesoamerican urbanism was as much a story about resilience and adaptation to environmental change as it was about collapse. Here we call for a dialogue among Mesoamerican urban archaeologists, sustainability scientists, and researchers interested in urban adaptation to climate change through a synthetic perspective on the organizational diversity of urbanism. Such a dialogue, seeking insights into what facilitates and hinders urban adaptation to environmental change, can be animated by shifting the long-held emphasis on failure and collapse to a more empirically grounded account of resilience and the factors that fostered adaptation and sustainability.
城市适应气候变化是一个全球性的挑战，需要广泛的应对措施，可以借鉴过去城市社会应对环境冲击的经验。然而，跨学科的努力利用城市过去的经验教训受到学科隔阂和对前现代人类住区和机构的性质和多样性的根深蒂固的误解的阻碍，特别是在前西班牙裔中美洲的情况下。尽管由于缺乏驮畜和轮式交通工具以及金属工具的使用有限且相对较晚，交流和资源开采存在障碍，但前西班牙裔中美洲长期以来一直被认为是一个独特的文化地区，它是世界上原始城市化时期之一的所在地。在过去的二十年中，由于在挖掘、分析和语境化考古材料方面取得了重大进展，我们对中美洲前西班牙裔城市主义的了解有了显著提高。我们现在知道，中美洲的城市主义既是关于对环境变化的适应和恢复力的故事，也是关于崩溃的故事。在这里，我们呼吁中美洲城市考古学家、可持续性科学家以及对气候变化适应城市感兴趣的研究人员通过对城市主义的组织多样性进行综合的视角进行对话。这种对话可以通过将长期以来对失败和崩溃的强调转变为更基于经验的弹性和促进适应和可持续性的因素的描述，来寻求促进和阻碍城市适应环境变化的见解。
