VOCABULARY

Disasters just happen and have always been so, from the beginning of the human presence on Earth… They could hurt people, cause damage, and, in modern times, can cut off utilities, such as water, telephones, or electricity. It seems that Nature sometimes provides "too much of a good thing”, such fire, water or wind. Today, children in many areas of the world are fortunate, because they have the opportunity to have emergency plans, specific safety rules, whole teams of professionals to rely on in times of crises, apart from their family, neighbours and volunteers, school and local and state infrastructures, as well.

But, in many places of the world today, and in older times, such situations did not exist, for example the means are not available (no cell phones, no solid medical treatment specified in catastrophes, no emergency rooms in hospitals, no satellites, no instant warnings and saving plans, no rescuing expeditions in time), and the distances between communities block early warning, getting information and helping on time.

        Disasters can be distinguished between natural ones and human-induced ones. The Natural Disasters are violent events that occur in the environment (for example, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, avalanches, droughts, floods, wildfires, meteorites and asteroid impacts, etc), outside the control of humans and usually beyond their capacity to predict them (basically by the ancient societies).

Human-induced Disasters have been triggered or caused by the human action (for example, environmental pollution, deforestation, soil erosion due to over exploitation of natural sources, wars, and technological accidents) and they are not the object of this book. Both they cause loss, death, injuries, pain and devastation and they can alter the physiognomy of states, cultures, behaviours, landscapes and historic decisions.

Today, humans can predict, control and mitigate disasters firstly by studying the ones that have already happened in the past. Scientists, after being “detectives” and “reporters” of past events, can then inform and help local communities, and humanity in general, to even prevent catastrophes or reduce significantly their impact on people. Here comes the important and crucial role of Disaster Archaeology.

As you can imagine, the term consists of two words, meaning that this scientific field is included in archaeological studies, since it is focused on the presence of humans on our planet from the beginning (around 5 million years ago) till the 19^th century Current Era, when scientists have agree that archaeology “stops” and recent history begins with the Industrial Era. It covers all the cultures of the world, all the continents and geographical areas and all the periods/ages/eras between those two limits.

In 2005, a Greek archaeologist and environmentalist, who had studied disasters, past and present, conceived the idea of an autonomous, interdisciplinary (= when many scientific specialties cooperate and share their results) scientific field, that could cover the history of disasters during the presence of humans on Earth. The author of this book, Dr Amanda Laoupi, proposed the field of Disaster Archaeology and the term archaeodisasters in order to distinguish them from the disasters that happened before five million years ago on Earth (during the boundary of Pliocene/Pleistocene, when hominids appeared). The disasters that took place before that era are called paleodisasters, and the events that happened after the 19^th century Current Era till now are called Disasters.

The human past cannot be separated from the environment ancient people lived in. Our ancestors lived and thrived although their daily lives were mostly unpredictable, chaotic, changeable. But their minds had always been fascinated by the beauty, the intensity and the variety of natural phenomena. They managed not only to survive, but also to create new achievements (civilizations), and even to challenge the frontiers of Nature…

Thus, with this book we will learn how disasters interplayed with the body, the mind, and the soul of our ancestors. You will become, too, detectives and investigators of information, of data and evidence that lead us today to conclusions about: when (time, frequency, periodicity), where (local events, bigger impact or global environmental effects / cataclysmic events), and how (hidden patterns, structure) catastrophes happened. And, which were their effect on various cultures of the world (biological, ecological, environmental, socio-economic, political, technological, geographical, and cultural results).

The Natural Phenomena include earthquakes, typhoons, torrential rainfalls, volcanic eruptions, “exo-terrestrial” phenomena, like meteorites and super nova explosions, and they are considered as environmental activity (processes, events) that occurs in Nature, independently of the human presence on Earth.

Hazards are unexpected or uncontrolled/inevitable natural events of unusual magnitude that threaten the life and activities of humans and have some special characteristics: (1) they reform the natural and cultural landscapes; (2) they intensify degradation processes, especially when human factors play a prominent role, and (3) they may provoke a broad spectrum of losses within human society. Other factors and human-induced hazardous events (for example, wars, famine, desertification, pollution and contamination) are, also, included in this category.

We talk about an Emergency, when we have a more serious situation than an incident, but less serious than a disaster. When an unintended damaging event or an industrial mishap happens, then we talk about an Accident.

When we experience a short period of extreme danger or acute emergency, we talk about a Crisis, which can be escalated or returning to normal afterwards. In parallel, a crisis exists if a community of people (organization, town, or a nation) perceives an urgent threat to its core values or life-sustaining functions, which must be dealt with under conditions of uncertainty.

Just remember that, in both crises and disasters, we deal with unexpected, undesirable, unimaginable, and often unmanageable situations. But a disaster occurs when a crisis escalates to a devastating ending.

Finally, when unusually severe (extreme) disasters happen, with irreversible impacts in the economy, the social life and/or the environment, we talk about Catastrophes.

Often, modern scientists separate disasters from catastrophes, according to some main features: (1) catastrophes have extremely large physical and social impacts, (2) our response requires federating initiative and proactive mobilization, (3) massive challenges may exceed those envisaged in pre-existing plans, (4) the emergency response system may be paralysed either at local or state level, (5) the public is extensively involved in long-term response, and (6) the effects are cascading and long-term.

        When “a massive or extreme catastrophic disaster extends over time and space”, then we talk about a Calamity, for example the lethal epidemic of plague (the Black Death) that nearly devastated the worldwide human population in the Middle Ages.

        Other forms of serious disasters can be the Pollution, meaning he presence of pollutants (substances, noise, radiation, etc) in the environment in such a quantity, concentration or duration that may cause harm on human health, on the proliferation of living organisms and on the equilibrium of ecosystems, making the environment unfit for human uses. Its main forms are air, water and soil, noise and light, littering, thermal and radioactive pollution. Some of these existed since antiquity, for example, the cases of Greek, Roman and Chinese metal production.

Each form of pollution that is characterized by the presence of pathogenic micro-organisms in the environment, or other indicators that imply the probability of the presence of such micro-organisms is called Contamination. It causes undesirable and dangerous change in the natural, the chemical and the biological properties of air, soil, subsoil, and the water, which can influence and threaten the health, the survival and the operations of all forms of life.

Our planet is considered as a very big environmental unit which includes a huge variety of Ecosystems that are the totalities of abiotic and biotic elements and parameters within the environment which exist in a given geographical area. Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems and they can be natural or human (= when people live in them).

         Modern archaeologists try to understand the landscapes of the past. Both landscapes of the past and a huge variety of modern landscapes should be protected. They are considered Cultural Heritage.

The Natural Landscapes that are protected include natural features (physical or biological formations), geological and physiographical formations, natural sites and protected natural areas (marine parks, national parks, aesthetic forests, protected monuments of nature, game reserves and hunting reserves, eco-development areas), along with the four types of biodiversity (genetic, species, habitat, landscape).

The Cultural Landscapes include places, features, objects, memories and perceptions related either to natural or man-made environments, ranging from these that are lost or ‘mythical’ , to those with numerous surviving features. Some are living landscapes, but their usage has altered them considerably, while others are largely unchanged. Sometimes, ‘fossil landscapes’ (for example, the area of Pompei in Italy, shipwrecks on the sea floor of the Black Sea) are unusually well preserved due to various environmental conditions or geological/physical processes.

For many, many other terms and words that are used in disasters, just read the relevant chapter of the book for you kids.