Landscape archaeology at the LAC2010 conference

Cuadernos de Prehistoria y Arqueología de la Universidad de Granada, 2021

This contribution offers a perspective on the intimate link that is established between theory, practice and results in the field of contemporary Landscape Archeology. With particular reference to the Anglo-Saxon and Mediterranean academic tradition, the discourse aims to investigate the specific way in which the adoption of broad categories and methodological procedures is key to reading the real and ideal Landscape. This analysis highlights how the many different interpretations of the Landscape represent the reflection of the type of questions pertaining to the context of a specific cultural background. I will pay particular attention to the phenomenological approach that seems to cannibalize the debate. Ultimately, I argues for a vision of landscape as a place of asymmetrical relations between human and non-human that cannot be done justice from too strong a phenomenological or materialistic perspective. Even the neo-materialistic collapse of subject and object must be tempered ...

2012

The study of landscape archaeology has historically drawn on two different groups of definitions of the term 'landscape' (Olwig 1993, 1996). On the one hand, the original, medieval meaning of landscape is 'territory', including the institutions that govern and manage it. Landscapes according to this definition can be observed subjectively, but also objectively by research based on fieldwork and studies in archives and laboratories (cf. Renes 2011). The second definition developed when artists painted rural scenes and called them 'landscapes'. In the latter, not only the paintings, but also their subjects became known as landscapes. Dutch painters reintroduced the word 'landscape' into the English language, and the word therefore gained a more visual meaning than it had on the Continent. The visual definition turns landscape into a composition that is made within the mind of the individual, so using this definition it could be argued that there is no landscape without an observer (Renes 2011). While in the latter definition the term 'landscape' originates from the Dutch 'landschap' (Schama 1995; David & Thomas 2008), it is probably more accurate to state that the study of 'territorial' landscapes originated as the study of historical geography and physical geography. This can be traced back to the classical authors, with Strabo noting that 'geography (…) regards knowledge both of the heavens and of things on land and sea, animals, plants, fruits, and everything else to be seen in various regions' (Strabo 1.1.1.). Physical geography is by nature an interdisciplinary field (geology, botany, soil science etc.) and in the late 18th and early 19th centuries it continued to focus on the study of the physical environment, for example in the work of the German researcher Alexander Von Humboldt. During the 19th century, most geographers saw human activities in the landscape as strongly defined by the physical landscape (such as in 'Anthropogeographie' in Germany: Ratzel 1882). This approach changed in the early 20th century, when the human element was introduced. During

In Claire Smith & Jo Smith (eds.). 2014. Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York: 4379-4388., 2014

An ever-present characteristic in any definition of Landscape Archaeology is that it refers to a varied and somewhat heterogeneous field of archaeological research. A number of approaches to the archaeological record may be included under this label, which in essence share one common interest: the analysis, through material culture, of the spatial dimension of human activity; in other words, exploring how human communities have related to a geographic space through time in terms of how they appropriated this space, and/or transformed its appearance through work and its significance through cultural practices.

Polish Journal of Landscape Studies, 2018

'Landscape' is a contemporary term in the field of urban and environmental studies. A concept which came from Europe to Iran and now is frequently used in various fields in the country. The concept of landscape, as a new kind of reality in the world, emerged in the Renaissance era in Europe, and according to the changes in the western worldviews in these centuries, has gained various aspects and meanings. The multifaceted concept of landscape which is even hard to describe in the philosophic view, had been coined in the field of art, passed through the world of philosophy, and affected by the recent achievements in the field of the relation between human and environment, is wildly considered in the planning and designing the human environs. Still, its multifaceted meaning frequently ignored by the specialist around the world as well as Iran. By considering the evolution of the concept of 'landscape' in Europe in a historic recall, this paper attempts to reveal the fundamental aspects of this concept, its current meaning, and anticipate its future shifts and its field of influence. By adopting a descriptive method and comparative analysis, the concept of landscape from the Renaissance until now is examining and classified through the historical and existing definitions. At the end, based on this historical review, with the futurological approach, the paper looks into the possible future for this ambiguous. The results of the classification of the definitions of 'landscape' from the Renaissance until now shows that although the emergence of 'landscape' coined based on the classic dualism between subject and object and the distinction between the world of physics and the world of phenomena as an individualistic regard to the nature, but with by the failure of this dualism and accepting the uncertainty in the world, it evaluated as a subjective-objective phenomenon. In the 21st century, this concept as a new field of science has gained the considerable attention and considered as a savior discipline for our crisis period of mono-dimensionality in the human and its environs relation.

Multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary research in Landscape Archaeology, 2016

Landscape Research, 2016

This article is about the landscape comprehension using concepts as a technic-scientific period and the informational media and the interfaces between technology and the infrastructures, becoming necessary the review the recent accumulated layers on the landscape. The cultural landscape transforming, the urban landscape layers, processed at the time. This new methology has an important role for the urban projects future applications. 1 An archeology (from Greek archei -ancient, plus logia -discourse, ordering) The landscape archaeology as an environmental project instrument Principles and Concepts for development in nowadays society -The landscape archaeology as an environmental project instrument 1480 In the late eighteenth century, from the pioneering excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Europe plunged into a fever of archaeological discoveries, motivated by the birth of modern scientific procedures and the richness of the legacy of the peninsula civilizations, the Greeks and Romans. Archeology, which according to PERINETTI:1975:13, was called by Plato "the history of the ancient heroes and races and of the origins of the city", was linked from then on to the monuments and artifacts of the ancient civilizations, whose search began to touch the Mediterranean, then Africa and later the Americas. As research progressed, deeper into remote time was entered and scientific possibilities allowed for more and more distant times to be specified. Overlapping archaeological layers began to be identified more precisely, and the idea of civilizational overlaps was finally proven in the 20th century. (TRIGGER:2004) Wars, forced domination of one city over another, trading interests and architectural typologies were revealed in successive layers, demonstrating the processes of reuse and subjugation of the weaker cultures, of the vanquished. Regionalisms started to be identified in time and Geography, discussed philosophically since ancient times, by the Greeks (MORAES: 2005: 49-58). It was now necessary to explain more concretely the spatialization of the finds. First, a physical geography, of a deterministic nature, and then, in the reading of the landscape, the discovery of the evolution of the view of nature, fruit of the discussion of the relations between society and its environment, bringing new parameters for the establishment of the so-called Human Geography, today an important basis in the discussions about Landscape. However, another phenomenon occurred, almost concomitantly: industrial civilization rushed to profoundly alter the geographical environments of its existence, causing urban agglomerations never before seen in the history of settlements. Cities, social artifacts, thus became an inexhaustible source of daily transformations of a landscape that starts to suffer overlaps of layers that are increasingly rapidly configured. Then the recognition of new forms of urbanization, through the implantation of large manmade geographical objects. It is unquestionable, then, the need for a new archeology of the landscape, based on the visible present, that finds the closest testimonies of the transformations and processes materialized and superimposed in a society of velocities. This is an industrial archeology of the landscape in the cities and urban extensions.

2013

The Origins of Landscape Science Definition of Landscape The definition of the term 'landscape' by e.g. geographers, ecologists and others can be quite variable. The original meaning was probably connected to a visual view of surroundings, as a picture or scenery, as has been widely adopted in art and literature. As a scientific term, landscape was introduced only in the early 19th century by Alexander von Humboldt, who defined it as 'the character of an Earth region' that is more than just the sum of its parts, as was indicated by a German bio-geographer Carl Troll (1939). According to the European Landscape Convention (2000), landscape means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors. Landscape can also be regarded as a provider of resources that includes land use, natural capital, etc., as a way of communicating through social order or customary law, or as a research object. This definition is close to the ideas developed by a Finnish geographer Johannes Gabriel Granö who combined natural and cultural themes including perception of landscapes through sight as well as other human senses (Granö, 1929). Thus, landscape includes two components tied to each other: one is objective, real and visible landscape (e.g. landform, vegetation pattern and texture, water bodies, buildings, human infrastructure) and the other is the subjective, virtual, non-visible landscape (Palang, 1994) including feelings generated by senses, a knowledge and past experience of the place, cultural associations, etc. Landscapes are heterogeneous in at least one factor of interest (Turner et al., 2001) and therefore landscape types and sub-types having similar features or attributes can be defined. Elements and Components of the Landscape The state of landscapes is mainly determined by the mixture of habitats or land cover types resulting from many causes, including variability in abiotic conditions (geology, relief, soils, climate, water), biotic interactions of fauna and flora that generate spatial patterns even under homogeneous environmental conditions, patterns of human settlement and land use and the dynamics of natural disturbance and succession (Turner et al., 2001). The socioeconomic factors determining the state of landscapes include the economy, for example production and distribution of goods and services, political factors such as objectives and decisions, social factors determined by the population and tourism and cultural factors such as traditions and values (Messerli and Messerli, 1978). Socioeconomic factors are driven by political means e.g. agricultural, forestry and energy policy, land use planning, environmental protection and promotion of the economy, and by the demand for natural resources, recreational areas and other ecosystem services. The dominant vegetation type, i.e. forests, arable lands, wetlands, meadows, is usually recognised as the main factor characterising a specific landscape. The dominant