# Environmental Memory **Domain:** Ecology / Culture / Archives **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Environmental memory** is information about past conditions retained in landscapes, organisms, cultural practices, sediments, collections and long-term records. ## Evolutionary Nexus Fossils, redwoods, Indigenous place knowledge and genomic conservation in [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]] are different forms of environmental memory. ## Continuity Context Memory is distributed across media with different failure modes. A valid archive preserves relationships among physical trace, context and interpretation rather than extracting data while discarding custodial knowledge. ## See Also [[wiki/Indigenous Knowledge Systems|Indigenous Knowledge Systems]], [[wiki/Fossil Record|Fossil Record]], [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]], [[wiki/Technical Archaeology|Technical Archaeology]]