Landscape Archaeology Between Art And Science

Researchers in landscape archaeology use two different definitions of landscape. One definition (landscape as territory) is used by the processual archaeologists, earth scientists, and most historical geographers within this volume. By contrast, post-processual archaeologists, new cultural geographers and anthropologists favour a more abstract definition of landscape, based on how it is perceived by the observer. Both definitions are addressed in this book, with 35 papers that are presented here and that are divided into six themes: 1) How did landscape change?; 2) Improving temporal, chronological and transformational frameworks; 3) Linking landscapes of lowlands with mountainous areas; 4) Applying concepts of scale; 5) New directions in digital prospection and modelling techniques, and 6) How will landscape archaeology develop in the future? This volume demonstrates a worldwide interest in landscape archaeology, and the research presented here draws upon and integrates the humanities and sciences. This interdisciplinary approach is rapidly gaining support in new regions where such collaborations were previously uncommon.

Researchers in landscape archaeology use two different definitions of landscape. One definition (landscape as territory) is used by the processual archaeologists, earth scientists, and most historical geographers within this volume. By contrast, post-processual archaeologists, new cultural geographers and anthropologists favour a more abstract definition of landscape, based on how it is perceived by the observer. Both definitions are addressed in this book, with 35 papers that are presented here and that are divided into six themes: 1) How did landscape change?; 2) Improving temporal, chronological and transformational frameworks; 3) Linking landscapes of lowlands with mountainous areas; 4) Applying concepts of scale; 5) New directions in digital prospection and modelling techniques, and 6) How will landscape archaeology develop in the future? This volume demonstrates a worldwide interest in landscape archaeology, and the research presented here draws upon and integrates the humanities and sciences. This interdisciplinary approach is rapidly gaining support in new regions where such collaborations were previously uncommon.

Over the past three decades, 'landscape' has become an umbrella term to describe many different strands of archaeology. Here, archaeologists attempt a comprehensive definition of the ideas & practices of landscape archaeology, covering the theoretical & the practical, the research & conservation, encasing the term in a global framework.

Environments, landscapes, and ecological systems are often seen as fundamental by archaeologists, but how they relate to society is understood in very different ways. The chapters in this book take environment, culture, and technology together. All have been the focus of much attention; often one or other has been seen as the starting point for analysis, but this volume argues that it is the study of the inter-relationships between these three factors that offers a way forward. The contributions to this book pick up different strands within the tangled web of intersections between environment, technology, and society, providing a series of case studies which explore facets of this common theme in different settings and circumstances and from different perspectives. As well as addressing themes of theoretical and methodological interest, these case studies draw on primary research dealing with time periods from the late Pleistocene glacial maximum to the very recent past, and involve societies of very different types. Running through all the contributions, however, is a concern with the archaeological record and the ways in which scales of observation and availability of evidence affect the development of questions and explanations. The diversity of the chapters in this volume demonstrates the inherent weakness in any attempt to prioritise environment, technology, or society. These three factors are all embedded in any human activity, as change in one will result in change in the others: social and technical changes alter relations with the environment–and indeed the environment itself—and as environmental change drives changes in society and technology. As this book shows, it is possible to consider the relationship between the three factors from different perspectives, but any attempt to consider one or even two in isolation will mean that valuable insights will be missed.

The Archaeology of Seeing provides readers with a new and provocative understanding of material culture through exploring visual narratives captured in cave and rock art, sculpture, paintings, and more. The engaging argument draws on current thinking in archaeology, on how we can interpret the behaviour of people in the past through their use of material culture, and how this affects our understanding of how we create and see art in the present. Exploring themes of gender, identity, and story-telling in visual material culture, this book forces a radical reassessment of how the ability to see makes us and our ancestors human; as such, it will interest lovers of both art and archaeology. Illustrated with examples from around the world, from the earliest art from hundreds of thousands of years ago, to the contemporary art scene, including street art and advertising, Janik cogently argues that the human capacity for art, which we share with our most ancient ancestors and cousins, is rooted in our common neurophysiology. The ways in which our brains allow us to see is a common heritage that shapes the creative process; what changes, according to time and place, are the cultural contexts in which art is produced and consumed. The book argues for an innovative understanding of art through the interplay between the way the human brain works and the culturally specific creation and interpretation of meaning, making an important contribution to the debate on art/archaeology.

The common feature of landscape archaeology is its diversity – of method, field location, disciplinary influences and contemporary voices. The contributors to this volume take advantage of these many strands to investigate landscape archaeology in its multiple forms, focusing primarily on the link to heritage, the impact on our understanding of temporality, and the situated theory that arises out of landscape studies. Using examples from New York to Northern Ireland, Africa to the Argolid, these pieces capture the human significance of material objects in support of a more comprehensive, nuanced archaeology.

There has been an increasing archaeological interest in human-animal-nature relations, where archaeology has shifted from a focus on deciphering meaning, or understanding symbols and the social construction of the landscape to an acknowledgment of how things, places, and the environment contribute with their own agencies to the shaping of relations.This means that the environment cannot be regarded as a blank space that landscape meaning is projected onto. Parallel to this, the field of environmental humanities poses the question of how to work with the intermeshing of humans and their surroundings.To allow the environment back in as an active agent of change, means that landscape archaeology can deal better with issues such as global warming, an escalating loss of biodiversity, as well as increasingly toxic environment. However, this does not leave human agency out of the equation. It is humans who reinforce the environmental challenges of today.The scholarly field of the humanities deal with questions like how is meaning attributed, what cultural factors drive human action, what role is played by ethics, how is landscape experienced emotionally, as well as how concepts derived from art, literature, and history function in such processes of meaning attribution and other cultural processes. This humanities approach is of utmost importance when dealing with climate and environmental challenges ahead and we need a new landscape archaeology that meets these challenges, but also that meets well across disciplinary boundaries. Here inspiration can be found in discussions with scholars in the emerging field of Environmental Humanities.

SEEING THE UNSEEN. GEOPHYSICS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY is a collection of papers presented at the advanced XV International Summer School in Archaeology 'Geophysics for Landscape Archaeology' (Grosseto, Italy, 10-18 July 2006). Bringing together the experience of some of the world's greatest experts in the field of archaeological prospection, the focus of this book is not so much on the analysis of single buried structures, but more on researching the entire landscape in all its multi-period complexity. The book is divided into two parts. The first part concentrates on the theoretical basis of the various methods, illustrated for the most part through case-studies and practical examples drawn from a variety of geographical and cultural contexts. The second part focuses on the work carried out in the field during the Summer School. Tutors and students took part in the intensive application of the principal techniques of geophysical prospecting (magnetometry, EM, ERT and ground-penetrating radar) to locate, retrieve, process and interpret data for a large Roman villa-complex near Grosseto. SEEING THE UNSEEN. GEOPHYSICS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY provides a clear illustration of the remarkable potential of geophysical methods in the study of ancient landscapes, and will be usefull to Archaeologists, Geophysicists, Environmental scientists, and those involved in the management of cultural heritage.