Abstract:

Growing mountains of waste, decreasing resources and global environmental pollution confront us today with challenges of unprecedented dimensions. Against this background, interest in sustainable and resource-saving concepts is increasing; it is not uncommon to fall back on (supposedly) traditional approaches from times past. But what do we really know about the roots of the circular economy? What turns everyday objects into worthless rubbish, what turns others into highly sought-after objects? What actually is waste?

Researchers from various disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences have joined forces to get to the bottom of these and similar questions in short stories. In them, they provide en passant or explicit insights into the broad spectrum of methods available to research today. The selected stories are loosely based on the authors’ research projects, whereby emphasis was placed on bringing together different disciplinary perspectives. Moreover, it is noteworthy that all academic levels – from Master’s degree students to professors – are represented. The result of these sometimes very different perspectives on seemingly everyday things leads to entertaining, sometimes surprising and often instructive insights that are quite intentionally thought-provoking about our world today.

Also available in German.

Contents

Preface
Johannes Müller

Treatment of Waste – Past and Present: An Introduction
Konrad Ott

Chapter 1: Hidden Dirt, Hidden Knowledge

The Cognitive Value of Dirt
Lorenz Kienle, Khurram Saleem, Ulrich Schürmann

Environmental aDNA – The Whole World in a Handful of Dirt
Jens Schneeweiß

A Closer Look at Dirty Layers
Svetlana Khamnueva-Wendt and Jens Schneeweiß

Chapter 2: Facing Stereotypes

Out of Sight Is Out of Mind: Bronze Age Waste Management – Back to the Year 1800 BCE
Jutta Kneisel, Janusz Czebreszuk, Wiebke Kirleis, Johannes Müller

From Weeds to Construction Material: Rye in Germany
Benjamin Claaßen

Turning Soil, Changing Perspectives – How Modern Sustainability Concepts and Past Ways of Life Meet in the Garden
Dana Zentgraf and Jens Schneeweiß

Chapter 3: Use. Reuse. Refuse

“Water, Water Everywhere,… nor Any Drop to Drink” – Water Waste, Reuse, and Quality in Ancient and Medieval Times
Nicolas Lamare, Max Grund, Guillermo Torres

Use and Reuse of Lead in the Middle Ages – A Biography of Lead
Paweł Cembrzyński and Marie Jäcker

Timber Recycling – or: How to Get People to Recycle?
Jutta Kneisel and Lisa Shindo

Shit Happens – Dealing with Faeces in the Middle Ages
Max Grund, Bente Majchczack, Jens Schneeweiß

Chapter 4: Learning from the Past? Today’s Challenges for the Future

Is this Trash Yet? On Rejecting and Depositing
Elena Diehl and Sonja Windmüller

Once Around the World – Plastics, the Sea as a Transport Route and the Archaeology of the Future
Katrin Knickmeier, Katrin Schöps, Ilka Parchmann

Contributors

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