This paper presents the results of a consensus-driven process identifying 50 priority research
questions for historical ecology obtained through crowdsourcing, literature reviews,
and in-person workshopping. A deliberative approach was designed to maximize discussion
and debate with defined outcomes. Two in-person workshops (in Sweden and Canada)
over the course of two years and online discussions were peer facilitated to define specific
key questions for historical ecology from anthropological and archaeological perspectives.
The aim of this research is to showcase the variety of questions that reflect the broad scope
for historical-ecological research trajectories across scientific disciplines. Historical ecology
encompasses research concerned with decadal, centennial, and millennial human-environmental
interactions, and the consequences that those relationships have in the formation
of contemporary landscapes. Six interrelated themes arose from our consensus-building
workshop model: (1) climate and environmental change and variability; (2) multi-scalar,
multi-disciplinary; (3) biodiversity and community ecology; (4) resource and environmental
management and governance; (5) methods and applications; and (6) communication and
policy. The 50 questions represented by these themes highlight meaningful trends in historical
ecology that distill the field down to three explicit findings. First, historical ecology is fundamentally
an applied research program. Second, this program seeks to understand longterm
human-environment interactions with a focus on avoiding, mitigating, and reversing
adverse ecological effects. Third, historical ecology is part of convergent trends toward
transdisciplinary research science, which erodes scientific boundaries between the cultural
and natural.