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Abstract

Despite growing policy recognition of the major sustainability challenges facing human societies in the twenty-first century, practical lessons from the successes and failures of the past are rarely considered beyond archaeology. As research is currently only scratching the surface of past human sustainability, this does not come as a surprise. Although the limitations and issues of the archaeology of sustainability are slowly being addressed, there have been few, if any, attempts at providing an overview of the (un)sustainability of different human societies and economies in the past and the current qualitative and fragmented state of knowledge presents major challenges in this regard. This chapter attempts to outline a picture of what is known about resilience and human impacts on the planet in the preindustrial past. The available evidence is cautiously reviewed to provide routes forward for more systematic study as well as new insights on the (un)sustainable nature of past human subsistence strategies, economic and political structures, and social organization across the various ecosystems of the planet.