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.Branton, Nicole (2009) Landscape Approaches in Historical Archaeology: The Archaeology of Places. In International Handbook of Historic Archaeology, Majewski, Teresita and Gaimster, David, eds. Springer: Natural landscapes are considered to be environments that have not been altered by humans in any shape or form.Hood, Edward J. (1996) "Social Relations and the Cultural Landscape". In Landscape Archaeology:Reading and Interpreting the American Historical Landscape. Yamin, Rebecca and Karen Bescherer Metheny, eds. Knoxville:The University of Tennessee Press. 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).Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M. and Sherene Baugher. (2010) "Introduction to the Historical Archaeology of Powered Cultural Landscapes." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 14, pp. 463–474. Among archaeologists, the term landscape can refer to the meanings and alterations people mark onto their surroundings. As such, landscape archaeology is often employed to study the human use of land over extensive periods of time.Gleason, Kathryn L. (1994). "To Bound and to Cultivate: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Gardens and Fields. In The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Miller, Naomi F. and Kathryn L. Gleason, eds. Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania PressErika Martin Seibert. "Archaeology and Landscape", Accessed December 12, 2010.
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)".
The term space has commonly been used in place of cultural landscape to describe landscapes that are "produced or mediated by human behavior to elicit certain behaviors".Delle, James A. (1998) An Archaeology of Social Space: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. Plenum Press. Defined in this manner, archaeologists, such as Delle, have theorized space as composed of three components: the material, social, and cognitive. Material space is any space that is created by people either through physical means or through the establishment of definitions, descriptions and rules of what a space is reserved for and how it should be used (Delle 1998:38). Social space is what dictates a person's relationship with both others and the material space (Delle 1998:39). Social space is how one uses their material space to interact with others and navigate throughout their world. Cognitive space is how people comprehend their social and material spaces—it is how people understand the world around them and identify appropriate ways of conducting themselves in the many different environments they may occupy (Delle 1998:38-9). Alternatively, the terms constructed, conceptualized, and ideational have been used to describe: the constructed ways in which people engage with their environments, meanings and interactions people place onto specific landscapes, and imagined and emotional perspectives individuals place with their landscapes.Knapp, Bernard A. and Wendy Ashmore (1999). "Archaeological Landscapes: Constructed, Conceptualized, Ideational". In Archaeologies of Landscape. Ashmore, Wendy and A. Bernard Knapp, eds. Malden:Blackwell Publishers Inc: pp. 1–30.; 10–12
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.Baugher, Sherene and Lu Ann De Cunzo. (2002) "Archaeological Perspectives on and Contributions to the Study of Colonial American Gardens." Landscape Journal 21.2-02 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,McKee, Larry. (1999). "Food Supply and Plantation Social Order: An Archaeological Perspective." In I, Too, Am America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life. Theresa A. Singleton, ed. Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia and site and skeletal dating. If landscape reconstruction and preservation, in particular, is a goal of an archaeological research project, pollen and soil analysis can aide in landscape archaeology to accurately interpret and reconstruct landscapes of the past (Schoenwetter pg 278).
Advances in survey technology have permitted the rapid and accurate analysis of wide areas, making the process an efficient way of learning more about the historic environment. Global Positioning System, remote sensing, archaeological geophysics, Total stations and digital photography, as well as GIS, have helped reduce the time and cost involved in such work.
Geographic Information Systems Geographic Information Systems, commonly referred to as GIS, provides a way in which archaeologists can visually represent archaeological data, and can be done in two ways: data visualization and representative visualization.McCoy, Mark D. and Thegn N. Ladefoged (2009). New Developments in the Use of Spatial Technology in Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 17:pp.263-295. 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.Watteaux 2017b, 201
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.
Ground Penetrating Radar Global Positioning System Remote Sensing Archaeological Geophysics Total Station Excavation Site excavation has the potential to uncover building methods, such as the findings of postholes (which can mark the previous existence of fence lines or other site boundaries), timber, stones, and/or brick that marks the existence of man-made structures.
Archaeological features often leave earthworks – signs of some type of modification to the natural environment that often appear as cropmarks, soil marks, or even as plough marks in fields that, if historical, can indicate cultivation methods of the past, or, particularly if more recent, can lift archaeological material to the surface and, therefore, ruin the stratigraphic layering of materials from youngest to oldest). Features can be discovered by archaeologists both through excavation and through field survey.
Archival Data is used by any archaeologists that have any written texts available to them, and is used in a multiple number of ways, depending on the research project and objective of the research and the data available in the archives. Archives are often employed to confirm archaeological findings, to understand the construction of a site, settlement patterns,. Pollen Analysis Pollen analysis has allowed archaeologists to analyze vegetation selectively cultivated by area residents, the "native vegetation" of a particular area, and allow archaeologists to map out land use over time (which can be ascertained from weedsKelso, Gerald K. and Mary C. Beaudry (1990). Pollen Analysis and Urban Land Use: The Environs of Scottow's Dock in the 17th, 18th, and Early 19th Century Boston. Historical Archaeology 24(1):pp. 61;62;65;75). 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.King, James E., Walter E. Klippel, and Rose Duffield (1975). Pollen Preservation and Archaeology in Eastern North America. American Antiquity 40(2):pp. 180–190.
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". Arboreal pollen indicates regional vegetation, while non-arboreal indicates local vegetation. Both arboreal and non-arboreal pollen can be gathered and used in archaeological studies to support documentary and archaeological evidence of changes in land use—initial settlement, resettlement of area by other groups, and decline and abandonment of area—for example non-arboreal pollen can indicate the replacement of vegetation native to a region within the United States by vegetation native to places in Europe, or to the clearance of large areas that would be expected to make way for cities and towns.
Soil Sampling Faunal Analysis Bioarchaeology Floral Analysis
Sociological aspects of landscape archaeology