Aneil and Vern discuss economic anthropology, archaeological relevance to current climate change concerns, making linkages between past and present, sustainability, interactions between ancient people and their environments, and what we can learn from them, population dispersion, inequality, interdisciplinary decision-making, laughter, and the value of taking the long view.

In this first Mergers & Acquisitions podcast episode, Aneil Tripathy interviews Vernon L. Scarborough. Vern is a Distinguished University Research Professor and a Charles Phelps Taft Professor in Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati. His topical interests focus on settlement, land use, and water management in the context of the archaic state. By examining ancient, engineered water systems and landscapes, he reflects on and assesses societal sustainability issues from a comparative ecological perspective. To achieve this end, he has emphasized cross–disciplinary exchange and international fieldwork. Vern is the author of “What ancient landscapes contribute to climate change” in Economic Anthropology’s symposium on climate change.