Episode 4: A climate of fear: what the past tells us about human responses to climate change | 2011 - Lunch Hour Lectures on Tour at The British Museum

Linking in with World Environment Day (5 June), archaeologist Joe Flatman will use a series of objects from the British Museum to explore what the past tells us about human responses to climate change. The barrage of conflicting information about climate change can seem insurmountable - a mass of data on a problem too big for any one person to understand or any one community to manage. Archaeology offers a key to unlocking this problem: ancient objects from around the world provide us with insights into how people in the past dealt with, perceived of, responded to and ultimately prospered in changing climates. Archaeology thus also provides analogies for how modern society can face the 'climate challenge' in the 21st century – and beyond.