Introduction : environmental studies for twenty-first-century conservation / The resilience of socioecological landscapes : lessons from the Hohokam / What is an "environmental crisis" to an archaeologist? / Beyond sustainability : managed wetlands and water harvesting in ancient Mesoamerica / Creating a stable landscape : soil conservation and adaptation among the ancient Maya / Farming the margins : on the social causes and consequences of soil-management strategies / The human-wildlife conundrum : a view from East Africa / What difference does environmental degradation make? : change and its significance in Transjordan / The earliest residents of Cyprus : ecological pariahs or harmonious settlers? / Social changes triggered by Younger Dryas and the early Holocene climatic fluctuations in the Near East / Abandoning the garden : the population/land degradation fallacy as applied to the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin in Mexico / Hohokam and Pima-Maricopa irrigation agriculturalists : maladaptive or resilient societies?