Munro Lecture - Professor Roland Fletcher: 'Past futures: Why the past really matters' Image As individuals we depend upon our personal past for a sense of identity and for the value of our acquired experience. If our communities do not retain a knowledge of our past and the suite of experience cumulated over long spans of time or we create fictional pasts we also squander the value of the past as an indicator what we are and what risks we may face. As we now face divisiness and increasing risks world-wide we need to pay attention to the past of all humankind. One of the greatest risks we face is that more than half of humankind now lives in cities. Many live in the giant low-density cities of the world, the megalopoli and desakota, which are almost entirely at or close to sea level, in time when rising planetary temperatures, as part of severe climate change, are a direct threat. We have assumed that whether a city is compact and densely occupied or has a more dispersed form and a low-density occupation is not a significant factor. However, the cities of the past two thousand years, worldwide, tell us something different – that compact cities and their urban networks are very robust but that low-density cities are not especially vulnerable to severe climate change and when they cease to function their entire urban networks also disintegrates. If this were to happen to the East Coast Megalopolis in the USA, or the Randstaat in Europe and the Yangtse River Delta complex, containing Greater Shanghai, the regional consequences would be extremely severe. What the archaeology tells us may be highly consequential. The event is free but ticketed. As soon as time and venue are confirmed an Eventbrite link will be made available. Professor Roland Fletcher Image Professor Roland Fletcher Roland Fletcher is Professor of Theoretical and World Archaeology at the University of Sydney. He completed his PhD at Cambridge University in 1975 and has worked at the University of Sydney since 1976. In 1995 he published The Limits of Settlement Growth with Cambridge University Press in which he developed the Interaction-Communication Model and its associated matrix diagram. He used the model to predict that Angkor was a vast agrarian-based, low-density city and initiated an interdisciplinary research program, the Greater Angkor Project, to study the form, operation and demise of Angkor, in collaboration with the Cambodian agency, APSARA and the Ecole francaise d’Extreme Orient. A key result has been the identification that the demise of Angkor was related to the impact of severe climate change. From the research on Angkor he has expanded the global analysis of low-density settlement patterns in archaeology and the relationship to present-day urbanism. Currently he and Professor Manuel Fernandez-Gotz are collaborators in a University of Edinburgh – University of Sydney research project on the sustainability of low-density settlements. Roland has been a Distinguished Fellow of Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study and an annual residential fellow at the Danish national Urban Networks Centre, an invited speaker at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin and a keynote speaker at the Chinese Institute of Urban Planners symposium in Nanjing and the Shanghai World Archaeological Forum. He is currently continuing his research on the large-scale outcomes of human behaviour. May 30 2023 17.15 - 19.30 Munro Lecture - Professor Roland Fletcher: 'Past futures: Why the past really matters' Professor Roland Fletcher will deliver the Munro Lecture, 'Past futures: Why the past really matters', on 30 May, 2023. Meadows Lecture Theatre, Doorway 4, School of History, Classics and Archaeology Teviot Place Edinburgh EH8 9AG Find the venue Register
Munro Lecture - Professor Roland Fletcher: 'Past futures: Why the past really matters' Image As individuals we depend upon our personal past for a sense of identity and for the value of our acquired experience. If our communities do not retain a knowledge of our past and the suite of experience cumulated over long spans of time or we create fictional pasts we also squander the value of the past as an indicator what we are and what risks we may face. As we now face divisiness and increasing risks world-wide we need to pay attention to the past of all humankind. One of the greatest risks we face is that more than half of humankind now lives in cities. Many live in the giant low-density cities of the world, the megalopoli and desakota, which are almost entirely at or close to sea level, in time when rising planetary temperatures, as part of severe climate change, are a direct threat. We have assumed that whether a city is compact and densely occupied or has a more dispersed form and a low-density occupation is not a significant factor. However, the cities of the past two thousand years, worldwide, tell us something different – that compact cities and their urban networks are very robust but that low-density cities are not especially vulnerable to severe climate change and when they cease to function their entire urban networks also disintegrates. If this were to happen to the East Coast Megalopolis in the USA, or the Randstaat in Europe and the Yangtse River Delta complex, containing Greater Shanghai, the regional consequences would be extremely severe. What the archaeology tells us may be highly consequential. The event is free but ticketed. As soon as time and venue are confirmed an Eventbrite link will be made available. Professor Roland Fletcher Image Professor Roland Fletcher Roland Fletcher is Professor of Theoretical and World Archaeology at the University of Sydney. He completed his PhD at Cambridge University in 1975 and has worked at the University of Sydney since 1976. In 1995 he published The Limits of Settlement Growth with Cambridge University Press in which he developed the Interaction-Communication Model and its associated matrix diagram. He used the model to predict that Angkor was a vast agrarian-based, low-density city and initiated an interdisciplinary research program, the Greater Angkor Project, to study the form, operation and demise of Angkor, in collaboration with the Cambodian agency, APSARA and the Ecole francaise d’Extreme Orient. A key result has been the identification that the demise of Angkor was related to the impact of severe climate change. From the research on Angkor he has expanded the global analysis of low-density settlement patterns in archaeology and the relationship to present-day urbanism. Currently he and Professor Manuel Fernandez-Gotz are collaborators in a University of Edinburgh – University of Sydney research project on the sustainability of low-density settlements. Roland has been a Distinguished Fellow of Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study and an annual residential fellow at the Danish national Urban Networks Centre, an invited speaker at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin and a keynote speaker at the Chinese Institute of Urban Planners symposium in Nanjing and the Shanghai World Archaeological Forum. He is currently continuing his research on the large-scale outcomes of human behaviour. May 30 2023 17.15 - 19.30 Munro Lecture - Professor Roland Fletcher: 'Past futures: Why the past really matters' Professor Roland Fletcher will deliver the Munro Lecture, 'Past futures: Why the past really matters', on 30 May, 2023. Meadows Lecture Theatre, Doorway 4, School of History, Classics and Archaeology Teviot Place Edinburgh EH8 9AG Find the venue Register
May 30 2023 17.15 - 19.30 Munro Lecture - Professor Roland Fletcher: 'Past futures: Why the past really matters' Professor Roland Fletcher will deliver the Munro Lecture, 'Past futures: Why the past really matters', on 30 May, 2023.
