The dahliagram: An interdisciplinary tool for investigation, visualization, and communication of past human-environmental interaction

• Published in: Science Advances
• Main Authors: Frachetti, Michael, Di Cosmo, Nicola, Esper, Jan, Khalidi, Lamya, Mauelshagen, Franz, Oppenheimer, Clive, Rohland, Eleonora, Büntgen, Ulf
• Other Authors: Washington University in Saint Louis (WUSTL), Institute for Advanced Study Princeton (IAS), Johannes Gutenberg - Universität Mainz = Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA), Culture et Environnements, Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen-Age (CEPAM), Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) (UNS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Côte d'Azur (UniCA), Universität Bielefeld = Bielefeld University, University of Cambridge UK (CAM)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Human-environment; Human-environment interaction; Archaeology; Climate; Methods & Tools; Human mobility; Human mobility patterns; Americas; Eurasia; East Africa; South Arabia; [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04304762; https://hal.science/hal-04304762/document; https://hal.science/hal-04304762/file/sciadv.adj3142.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adj3142

International audience Investigation into the nexus of human-environmental behavior has seen increasing collaboration of archaeologists, historians, and paleo-scientists. However, many studies still lack interdisciplinarity and overlook incompatibilities in spatiotemporal scaling of environmental and societal data and their uncertainties. Here, we argue for a strengthened commitment to collaborative work and introduce the “dahliagram” as a tool to analyze and visualize quantitative and qualitative knowledge from diverse disciplinary sources and epistemological backgrounds. On the basis of regional cases of past human mobility in eastern Africa, Inner Eurasia, and the North Atlantic, we develop three dahliagrams that illustrate pull and push factors underlying key phases of population movement across different geographical scales and over contrasting periods of time since the end of the last Ice Age. Agnostic to analytical units, dahliagrams offer an effective tool for interdisciplinary investigation, visualization, and communication of complex human-environmental interactions at a diversity of spatiotemporal scales.