Climate driven seasonal floods and the rising sea level are amongst the biggest challenges of our time. Exploring how communities coped with such consequences of climate change is crucial for a deeper understanding of vulnerability and resilience in the past and present. In the scope of the SNSF Ambizione project «RISE», the response of Bronze Age (2200–800 BC) settlement communities in the Circum-Alpine space to recurring seasonal and longer-termed climate-driven lake level changes will be researched. A major focus is on how cultural diversities influenced social resilience capabilities to lake level rises. The specific research aims are to correlate different climate fluctuations to changing settlement activities and dwelling practices in different waterscapes around the Alps (lakes of the northern and southern Alpine Foreland) and to understand how the respective climatic, environmental, and cultural contexts led to specific vulnerabilities. By adopting a diachronic perspective, the social resilience capabilities of settlement communities will be revealed. While failed settlement attempts and settlement interruptions indicate vulnerability, architectural measures, spatial mobility, and the recurring re-occupation of the shores over time speak for the communities’ resilience. In parallel to climate, socio-political and economic causes must be factored in. Therefore, a new socio-spatial approach to climate change archaeology will be developed. Despite the abundance of research and data on the respective Bronze Age sites of the Alpine space, the resilience and vulnerability of lakeshore settlements to climate change is still poorly understood.
