Session 3: Living, Coexisting, Adapting: Interactions between Humans, Environments, and Other Living Beings

Interactions between organisms (e.g., predation, competition, commensalism, parasitism, mutualism) lie at the heart of ecosystem structuring, trophic networks, and landscape transformation. Through their activities, human populations can durably influence these relationships by altering resource availability and species distribution. The evolution of lifestyles and subsistence strategies—through practices such as hunting, herding, agriculture, or land management—thus shapes ecological and health dynamics at both macroscopic and microscopic scales.

Indeed, interactions between humans, their environment, and other living organisms also include invisible yet fundamental exchanges with the microbiome, whose influence on host health and adaptation is now widely recognized. Similarly, the study of pathogens—key actors in these dynamics—reveals how human societies have co-evolved with infectious agents, often in response to their own environmental and cultural transformations.

The methodological tools of biomolecular archaeology available today offer new perspectives for tracing these intertwined histories. They enable the study of biological adaptation in species facing changing environmental constraints, as well as associated cultural responses. These methods also illuminate dietary, environmental, and health dynamics shaped by societal evolution and landscape anthropization, whether through resource exploitation, soil transformation, or shifts in hydrological and climatic regimes.

This theme invites exploration of the diverse forms of interaction between human populations, environments, and other living organisms and microorganisms, from an interdisciplinary and diachronic perspective.

Keywords:

• Animal diet
• Interspecific relationships
• Domestication
• Anthropization
• Pathogens and microorganisms