An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions
Richard Wilshusen2001, Journal of Archaeological Research
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
This review calls for the definition of a landscape approach in archaeology. After tracing the development of the landscape idea over its history in the social sciences and examining the compatibility between this concept and traditional archaeological practice, we suggest that archaeology is particularly well suited among the social sciences for defining and applying a landscape approach. If archaeologists are to use the landscape paradigm as a "pattern which connects" human behavior with particular places and times, however, we need a common terminology and methodology to build a construct paradigm. We suggest that settlement ecology, ritual landscapes, and ethnic landscapes will contribute toward the definition of such a broadly encompassing paradigm that also will facilitate dialogue between archaeologists and traditional communities.
Related papers
Landscape Archaeology
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.
The State of Archaeology: Landscape Archaeology Methodology
Landscape archaeology is, in essence, a conceptual framework for the study of peoples’ interactions, both sacred and secular, with the land they occupy and modify. It also institutes a scope of what modernity holds as important or even essential to humanity, and it has experienced a great shift in spacial and self-awareness in recent years. The agency present between landscape archaeology (for example) and modernity is similar to looking in a mirror; one object reflects distinct characteristics relative to the other which is non-existent without the other object. In other words, it is through the likes of scholarship, i.e. archaeology, that we are truly able to scientifically evaluate and document what modern society regards as significant to contemporary living. Consequently, because landscape archaeology and archaeologists deal with culture and nature as mutually exclusive entities at times, the discipline itself is inherently multidisciplinary (or often understood as fractured) in its approach to studying, recording, and interpreting/leveraging people’s connections and dealings with the locations they inhabit. In light of this, I will leverage Bruno David and Julian Thomas who break the relatively new discourse, circa mid 1970’s, into a series of observations centered on how different ethnicities envisioned the world, which then influenced their interactions with other peoples across diverse spaces.
An archaeological theory of landscapes
2005
This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.
Archaeology, Landscape and Aesthetics
Landscape archaeology is a recently emerged and very lively branch of archaeology. Its origins go back at least two centuries, to amateur interests in local history and to the writings of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Hazlitt on the English countryside and its inhabitants. Various developments in archaeologytechnical, epistemological, ideologicalhave helped to convert these earlier approaches into a more professional field of enquiry. Sophisticated aerial and satellite photography has made visual access possible to ancient settlements and agricultural sites whose very existence might previously have been a matter only of conjecture. Within archaeological theory, there has emerged the notion of a 'ritual landscape', registering the thought that relentless attention to 'sites', such as Stonehenge, may be myopic, since these have their significance only in the context of the much wider environments in which human beings conducted their lives. Finally, landscape archaeology appeals to those who applaud a certain 'demotic' tendency in contemporary archaeology, its shift of focus on to the lives of 'ordinary' people, such as farmers and foragers, in past centuries. This is because the evidence for how they once lived is often more likely to be found in the land than in remnants of buildings and artefacts at sites.
Remarks on the understanding landscape in archaeology
Polish Journal of Landscape Studies, 2018
Social Archaeologies of Landscape (2004)
A Companion to Social Archaeology, edited by Lynn Meskell and Robert W. Preucel, pp. 255-271. Blackwell, Oxford., 2004
The landscape archaeology as an environm
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.
The contribution of archaeology to knowledge about the landscape
ArchéoSciences, 2009
Revue d'archéométrie 33 (suppl.
An Archaeological Approach to Landscape Studies: Is there a difference between Landschap and Landschaft
Landscape archaeology is, in essence, a conceptual framework for the study of peoples’ interactions, both sacred and secular, with the land they occupy and modify. Because landscape archaeology deals with culture and nature as mutually exclusive entities at times, the discipline itself is inherently multidisciplinary in its approach to studying and recording people’s connections and dealings with the locations they inhabit. Bruno David and Julian Thomas break the relatively new discourse, circa mid 1970’s (Aston, Rowley 1974), into a series of observations centered on how any particular people envisioned the world, which then influenced their interactions with other peoples across diverse spaces. David and Thomas also perceived how cultures either chose to utilize their environments, or if “…they were subliminally affected to do things by their locational circumstances (David, Thomas 2008: 38).” Broadly speaking, the critical foci which differentiates landscape archaeology from other archaeologies is its deliberate emphasis on the relationships between the perceived social orders and gender boundaries, ecological significances, moral conditions and general ontological consequences (David, Thomas 2008: 38).
Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage
Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage, 2007
Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archaeology and Heritage
Related topics
Related papers
Epilogue: In Search of an Identity: Landscape Archaeology for Post-Classical Studies. Defining and Understanding Archaeological Landscapes
Multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary research in Landscape Archaeology, 2016
Landscape in Theory. The Unexpected Virtue of Archaeological Approach
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 ...
Settlement and Landscape Archaeology (Gary M. Feinman, 2015)
Feinman, G.M., 2015. Settlement and Landscape Archaeology. In: James D. Wright, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol 21. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 654–658. Settlement pattern archaeology and the investigation of ancient landscapes, especially when systematically implemented, have been some of the most significant archaeological innovations of the last half century. These studies have shed new light on the emergence of hierarchically organized and urban societies in regions around the world, while also providing new perspectives on the history of human–environmental interactions. This article reviews the roots of these regional archaeological approaches, their theoretical underpinnings, and some of the key empirical contributions.
Landscape archaeology at the LAC2010 conference
Quaternary International, 2012
Place, Landscape, and Environment: Anthropological Archaeology in 2009
American Anthropologist, 2010
Topics of current interest to anthropological archaeologists include the relationships between people and place, interactions between people and past environments, and responses by past societies to changes in the natural environment. In this article, I focus on recent considerations of past landscapes and the built environment. This research concentrates on such topics as architecture, the utilization of different environmental zones, and transitions from foraging to farming, one of the long-standing topics of interest to anthropological archaeology. Recent archaeological research also emphasizes climate change and warfare, topics that have relevance to current events and conditions in the modern world.
INTRODUCTION LAC2010: First International Landscape Archaeology Conference
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
This document is currently being converted. Please check back in a few minutes.