Session Abstract

Advances in scientific research are producing immense amounts of new data capable of illuminating life stories and collective experiences that previously seemed beyond recovery. They are dissolving the epistemological divide between pre-history and history, and between history, archaeology and the natural sciences. What are those sciences, what do they portend, how can we use them without abusing them?  A new initiative is bringing together researchers in biomolecular archaeology, climate change, computer sciences, genetics, population health, and history to address new questions emerging from the ongoing breakthroughs, and the challenges and opportunities they offer for current historical debates in global history.