Landscape archaeology

Landscape archaeology, previously known as total archaeology, is a sub-discipline of archaeology and archaeological theory. It studies the ways in which people in the past constructed and used the environment around them. It is also known as archaeogeography (from the Greek "ancient", and "earth study"). Landscape archaeology is inherently multidisciplinary in its approach to the study of culture, and is used by pre-historical, classic, and historic archaeologists. The key feature that distinguishes landscape archaeology from other archaeological approaches to sites is that there is an explicit emphasis on the sites' relationships between material culture, human alteration of land/cultural modifications to landscape, and the natural environment. The study of landscape archaeology (also sometimes referred to as the archaeology of the cultural landscape) has evolved to include how landscapes were used to create and reinforce social inequality and to announce one's social status to the community at large. The field includes with the dynamics of geohistorical objects, such as roads, walls, boundaries, trees, and land divisions.

Introduction

Landscape generally refers to both natural environments and environments constructed by human beings. Natural landscapes are considered to be environments that have not been altered by humans in any shape or form. Cultural landscapes, on the other hand, are environments that have been altered in some manner by people (including temporary structures and places, such as campsites, that are created by human beings). Among archaeologists, the term landscape can refer to the meanings and alterations people mark onto their surroundings.

Landscape archaeology can be summed up by Nicole Branton's statement:

:"the landscapes in landscape archaeology may be as small as a single household or garden or as large as an empire", and "although resource exploitation, class, and power are frequent topics of landscape archaeology, landscape approaches are concerned with spatial, not necessarily ecological or economic, relationships. While similar to settlement archaeology and ecological archaeology, landscape approaches model places and space as dynamic participants in past behavior, not merely setting (affecting human action), or artifact (affected by human action)". Defined in this manner, archaeologists, such as Delle, have theorized space as composed of three components: the material, social, and cognitive.

Analysis of landscapes

Many methods used to analyze archaeological sites are relevant to the analysis of landscapes. The archaeology of landscapes incorporates multiple research methods into its analysis in order to ensure that multiple sources of information are gathered; allowing for a sound interpretation of the site in question. These methods include pollen analysis, Geographic Information Systems, soil sampling, faunal analysis, ground penetrating radar, archival data (including maps and census data), and of course archaeological excavation methods. Pollen, soil, faunal, and floral analysis allows the archaeologist to understand the natural vegetation of an area, vegetation that was actively grown by area settlers, and the animal life that also lived in the area. An understanding of the plant and animal life specific to an area can lead to, for example, an analysis of the types of food available to members of the community, an understanding of the actual diet typical for a subset of a population, and site and skeletal dating. For example, researchers can create planar maps from orthophotos, then add multiple layers of historical data (such as changing topology or the locations of artificial structures) on the same map, allowing them to better see the duration and durability of past and present forms within a landscape.

:Viewshed Analysis has aided in the archaeologist's ability to study behavioral relationships between humans, their landscape, and material culture, in order to study migration, settlement patterns, and agency. Viewshed analysis also provides means with which archaeologists can recreate through an ability to recreate the line of sights possible from one point on a landscape and to situate a person within a defined landscape.). But collecting a suitable sample is not all that easy. Failure to collect a suitable sample can be due in part to not sampling from areas where suitable pollen samples can be gathered (e.g. lakes and bogs, sites that were sufficiently exposed to air-borne pollen, sites that had both a long exposure to air and are deeply buried into the ground), or because pollen is vulnerable to destruction by the oxidation process or soil microbes such as bacteria and fungi, it negatively impacts an archaeologist's ability to collect a suitable pollen sample.

:Gerald K. Kelso and Mary C. Beaudry demonstrate how "…changes in the complex mosaic of microenvironments in metropolitan situations are sensitively recorded in the pollen contributions of weedy taxa". These optical illusions functioned to transform the home into a readily identifiable status symbol, and to mark the owners and occupants of these homes as socially distinct from others within the colonial community. Stately homes and gardens constructed by the colonial elite also served to assert authority and to naturalize a social hierarchy onto the colonial landscape. and demonstrate the ways in which the elite constructed their industrial landscapes that worked to restrict perceived amoral behaviors (e.g. drinking, smoking) and to maintain an orderly landscape. The landscape also provided an area where "values like orderliness, gentility, and abstinence were important elements of a middle-class culture that, while subject to variability, was nevertheless part of daily existence." This was largely done through architectural techniques such as incorporating positions where panoptic views can be achieved into the construction of planters and/or overseers homes

Archaeologists have pointed out that, although home spaces are generally considered to have become increasingly gendered, it is erroneous to assume that only women occupied the private (home) sphere and men the public. For more extensive information on this topic, see Household Archaeology.

Barbara Voss has undertaken extensive archaeological work to reveal how ideas about gender, sexuality, marriage, and ethnic/racial intermarriage were mapped onto the landscape of Spanish Colonial mission sites in California (El Presidio de San Francisco). Voss' interpretations reveal the lived trauma that is often concealed by popular, romanticized, narratives of relationships established through colonial contact between indigenous peoples and Spanish colonizers The mission landscape became physical and conceptualized space where two genders (male/female) and heterosexuality were to be explicitly expressed and reinforced. One feature that appears to be widespread throughout the African diaspora is the significant importance of yard spaces in the everyday lives of African-Americans. Sidney W. Mintz, in describing the "house-and-yard pattern" among African-American peasants residing in the Caribbean, explains "…the house, particularly among poorer peasants, is not important in itself as a material representation (i.e. material culture/artifacts) of the domestic group or family". Mintz further states that while the house "…is usually used mainly for sleeping and for storing clothing and other articles of personal value" the yard is where "…children play, the washing is done, the family relaxes, and friends are entertained". Similarly, Heath and Bennett describe the yard as a space in which "…food production and preparation, care and maintenance of animals, domestic chores, storage, recreation, and aesthetic enjoyment" often occur at. The use of the yard as an important and integral aspect of a home appears to be an element that many west African cultures hold, which indicates that the function of the yard within African-American households may be a facet of west African cultures that was maintained in the New World, as well as a cultural aspect that aided in the development of African American identities in the Americas. In his excavations of the Neolithic enclosure at Great Wilbraham, David Clarke defined "total archaeology" as the incorporation of a full range of interdisciplinary specialists and the incorporation of scientific methods, such as magnetometry and pollen analysis, in the reconstruction of a site. Total archaeology aimed to understand sites in their contexts, studying landscapes as a whole and incorporating methods traditionally used by historians, geographers, geologists and anthropologists. The term "landscape archaeology" was first used in a book title, as a replacement for "total archaeology", in 1974, by Mick Aston and Trevor Rowley.

The spatial archaeology trend was launched by Ian Hodder in 1976. It is an archaeological trend, such as ethnoarchaeology, cognitive archaeology and other archaeological approaches. Spatial archaeology was defined by Clarke in 1977. He pointed out three analysis levels: macro, micro and semi-micro (Clarke 1977: 11–15). This trend analyses the interaction between nature and culture.

Human geography uses location analysis to define models for the understanding of the territorial organisation. The archaeologists Higgs and Vita-Finzi began to apply Site Catchment Analysis (SCA) in 1970s. They proposed a new approach to know how people settled in prehistoric societies. They analysed economic resources with tools taken from Human Geography, these resources were 5–10 km from the archaeological sites. Some years later, in the 1970s, spatial archaeology was created, based on the use of several tools taken from 1960s English Human Geography that was focus on the study of location interdependence. Some archaeologists use these geographical techniques (Hodder & Orton 1976; Hodder 1977, 1978; Clarke 1977 The reason was related to the lack of a general method to study archaeological territory. In 1989, Javier de Carlos said that archaeology was only able to apply geographical techniques without being able to use a procedure integrated in a method.

Centers of research

Archaeogeography is taught in France and Portugal. A Masters degree in Archaeology and Environment is given by the University of Paris I. Archaeogeography is also included in the University of Coimbra's curricula of Centro de Estudos de Arqueologia, Artes e Ciências do Património.

References

Sources

Bjørnar, Olsen; Shanks, Michael; Webmoor, Timothy and Witmore,Christopher. Archaeology: the Discipline of Things. London: University of California Press, 2012.
Chouquer, Gérard (dir.), Les formes du paysage, tomes 1, 2 et 3 - Études sur les parcellaires, Errance, Paris, 1996–1997.
Chouquer, Gérard L'étude des paysages. Essai sur leurs formes et leur histoire, Errance, Paris, 2000.
Chouquer, Gérard et Favory, FrançoisL'arpentage romain, Histoire des textes, Droit, Techniques, Errance, Paris, 2001.
Chouquer, Gérard «Crise et recomposition des objets : les enjeux de l'archéogéographie», Études Rurales, juillet-décembre 2003, n°167-168, p. 13–31.
Chouquer, Gérard Quels scénarios pour l'histoire du paysage ? Orientations de recherche pour l’archéogéographie, préface de Bruno Latour, Coimbra-Porto, 2007, 408 p.
Chouquer, Gérard Traité d'archéogéographie. La crise des récits géohistoriques, Errance, Paris, 2008, 200 p.
Chouquer, Gérard 2008b. Les transformations récentes de la centuriation. Une autre lecture de l'arpentage romain. Les Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 4: 858–874.
Chouquer, Gérard La terre dans le monde romain : anthropologie, droit, géographie, Actes Sud, Arles, 2010, 352 p.
Chouquer, Gérard et Watteaux,Magali, "L’archéologie des disciplines géohistoriques", Errance, Paris, 2013.
de Carlos, Javier, Una aproximación territorial fenómeno megalítico: La Rioja Alavesa y Cuartango. Munibe. Suplemento, nº 6, 1988, p. 113–127.
de Carlos, Javier, Desde la ortodoxia espacial hasta el albor del método arqueogeográfico: aplicación crítica del Site Catchment Analysis a los dólmenes de La Rioja Alavesa y el valle de Cuartango. Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología: BSAA, vol 55, 1989, p. 15–40.
de Carlos, Javier,, La Arqueogeografía. Un procedimiento para el estudio del espacio prehistórico Madrid, Universidad Complutense, 1991.
Études Rurales n°167-168, dossier sous dir. G. Chouquer "Objets en crise, objets recomposés", juillet-décembre 2003
Études Rurales n°175-176, dossier sous dir. G. Chouquer "Nouveaux chapitres d'histoire du paysage", juillet-décembre 2005.
Harman,German "On Behalf of Form." In Elements of Architecture: Assembling Archaeology, Atmosphere and the Performance of Building Spaces, edited by Mikkel Bille and Tim Flohr Sørensen, 30–46. The View From Archaeology and Architecture. Routledge, 2016.
Lavigne, Cédric. Essai sur la planification agraire au Moyen Âge. Les paysages neufs de la Gascogne médiévale (XIIIe-XIVe siècles), Ausonius-Publications, Bordeaux, 2002.
Olivier, Laurent, The Dark Abyss of Time. Altamira Press, 2011.
Les nouvelles de l'archéologie n°125, dossier sous dir. M. Watteaux, "L'archéogéographie. Un état des lieux et de leurs dynamiques", octobre 2011.
Les nouvelles de l'archéologie n°115, dossier sous dir. S. Robert et N. Verdier "Du sentier à la route. Une archéologie des réseaux viaires", mars 2009.
Robert, Sandrine et Costa, Laurent Guide de lecture des cartes anciennes, Errance, Paris, 2008.
Robert, Sandrine, Sources et techniques de l'archéogéographie, Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, Besançon, 2011.
Robert, Sandrine, « Une vision renouvelée de la dynamique forme-société entre archéologie et géographie », L’Espace géographique 2012/4 (Vol. 41), p. 310–323. (Available in English translation at: https://www.cairn-int.info/article-E_EG_414_0310--revisiting-the-dynamics-linking-society.htm)
Watteaux, Magali. "The Road Network in the Longue Durée: a Reading Key of the History of Territories." Open Archaeology 3: 149–174, 2017 a.
Watteaux, Magali. "What Do the Forms of the Landscapes Tell Us?." In Clashes of Time: the Contemporary Past as a Challenge for Archaeology, edited by Jean-Marie Blaising, Jan Driessen, Jean-Pierre Legendre, and Laurent Olivier, 195–220. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: UCL Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2017b.

External links

The Society for American Archaeology
The Society for Historical Archaeology
Video showing how landscape archaeology can be used to understand a castle's medieval setting
Archaeogeography: a procedure for the study of Archaeological Space
Archeogeography website
Archaeogeography Working Group belonging to University of Coimbra
Scientific Journal Echogeo