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 re-introduced the word...

Studies of the origin, development and decline of past human settlement are of great importance in archaeology. From prehistoric times, humans tried to adjust their dwellings to their environment. Presumably, at an early stage of human development, adaptation was more instinctive than cognitive. However, experience obtained over time allowed an ancient human community to settle down in an area with a favourable environmental setting and shape, and to construct a surrounding landscape. Settlement development is deeply connected to a proper human understanding of the environment. In the past, humans gradually acknowledged micro and macro environments and, as a result, a...

A most fascinating aspect of irrigation is the close connection between civilisation and the natural environment in which water infrastructure acts as interplay. Many civilisations of the past have used irrigation to feed their population. Intensified production provided a relatively secure food source for a larger population as it enabled the peasant population to produce a surplus to support the non-peasant population. Food security enabled development of city kingdoms in many regions: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus-valley, China, Mexico and (coastal) Peru (Scarborough 2003). Because of the importance of irrigation, it has been well studied. The well-known Hydraulic Hypothesis is based...

The north Bohemian brown-coal basin covers the area between the Krušné hory mountains (Erzgebirge) and České středohoří (Central Czech Highlands). The land was heavily hit by the industrial era of coal mining, which dates back at least 200 years in this area. Today, coal mining has declined. The Bílina Mine, one of the last persisting active mines, covering an area of 7,441.59 ha, produces boiler coal with annual production of 9 million tons and with 50 million m3 of overburden soils stripped (Bílina Mines, 2009). The core area is situated behind the western border of the active mine, between the...

The region of the Papikion Mountain in Rhodope has a variety of traditional landscapes. It was first inhabited by hermits and the communal monastic system was introduced later. During the 11th century AD monks began developing a monastic centre, adopting techniques to shape the landscape according to their needs. After the 13th century, monasteries began to decline, mostly due to fires. During post-Byzantine times, Papikion was no longer considered to be a monastic centre. However, close to the ruins of the monasteries the Islamised residents of the uplands of Rhodope, the Pomaks, built small settlements in order to exploit the...

The function of cities, in general, has changed and developed rapidly over time, depending upon various factors. Cities have also expanded, and as a result of these changes they have gained different identities, in terms of history and politics. The political, physical and technological changes have resulted in the destruction of the urban textures, largely because of changes in social values which have lead to new demands. Because of all these factors, the development areas in big cities have become, in a historical sense, collapsed areas.

The transformation process still continues in the city of Istanbul today, as it has...

It has been established that the visibility and preservation of the archaeological record is strongly influenced by the complex interaction of many different factors, both natural and induced by human intervention. As a result, it is unwise to undertake any survey project without providing a detailed study of the dynamics generated by these elements. In this regard, Mediterranean landscapes present a strong challenge because of the complexity of geomorphic processes, soil erosion and a long history of intensive land use (see for example Bintliff 2005; van Andel et al. 1990). In particular, alluvial landscapes offer a changing environment, sometimes at...

The Baroque garden design movement has given to mankind some of the most splendid and grandiose examples of spatial arrangement in the built and natural environment. For example, the legendary park at Versailles near Paris ranks amongst the world’s greatest achievements in garden design. However, after the rise of ideals of equality one of the key ideologies of the French monarchy – formal Baroque design – fell out of favour during the 18th century. As the popularity of Baroque design waned in Western Europe, however, formal garden design continued to be practised in Estonian manor parks during 19th century by...

In 19 BC the Cantabrian Wars ended. At that moment RomanAsturiawas configured as theConventus Iuridicus Asturum(see Figure 1), thereby becoming incorporated into the Empire. In that area gold had already been exploited at the artisan level (Fernández-Posse de Arnáiz et al. 2004; Sánchez-Palencia Ramos & Fernández-Posse de Arnáiz 1998), generating a rich catalogue of goldwork from the Iron Age (García Vuelta 2007; Montero Ruiz & Rovira Llorens 1991; Diputación Provincial de Lugo, 1996; Perea Caveda & Sánchez-Palencia Ramos 1995). Augustus had designed a new monetary system which consolidated theaureusand thedenariusas the gold and silver standards,...

A common is an area of land, in private or public ownership, over which rights of common exist. Right of common has been defined as ‘a right, which one or more persons may have, to take or use some portion of that which another man’s soil naturally produces’ (fromHalsbury’s Laws of England[1991], quoted by Clayden 2003, 10). There are six main rights of common: pasture (the right to graze animals); pannage (the right to feed pigs on fallen acorns and beech mast); estovers (the right to collect small wood, furze and bracken); turbary (the right to cut turf...

Frost mounds in general and pingos in particular, are ice-pushed mounds growing in periglacial conditions, such as those at the end of the Weichselian in Europe. When the soil cover of a pingo is pushed upwards due to the growth of the ice lens underneath it, the top of the mound will tear at a certain height and the material will start to slide down (gelifluction), which leads to the formation of a rampart. The height at which this happens depends on the thickness of the soil cover or overburden. After a while, the top of the ice core will...

Opencast lignite mining results in the total destruction of cultural landscapes and even small towns. Therefore, over the past years systematic archaeological research has been carried out in the opencast pits in Lower Lusatia (southern Brandenburg, Germany), prescribed by the regulations of the Brandenburgisches Denkmalschutzgesetz (BbgDschG). For the opencast pit Jänschwalde, it is expected that during the year 2010, an area of approximately 200 ha will be utilised (4 km length of the opencast pit and 500 m width of the excavated stripe). However, the large-scale impact of lignite extraction offers the opportunity for archaeologists to study landscape and settlement...

In this paper we study north coastalEtruria, focusing on the littoral area from the Magra to the Cecina rivers and the hinterland with the main rivers lower valleys (Magra, Serchio, Arno, Cecina) (figs.1, 3). From the 6th to the early 2nd centuries BC the northern part of this territory was dominated by Pisa, the southern by Volterra. In the early decades of the 2nd century and the late decades of the 1st century BC the establishment of colonies changed the settlement patterns and had a strong impact on the rural landscapes and the coastal progradation (fig.2).

In this area...

In the prehistory of northern Europe megalithic graves belong to the most remarkable and mysterious structures. The time of their construction, as well as their function and role in the development of human culture are intensely discussed topics not only in archaeology, but also in the natural sciences, dealing with the impacts of human activities on the landscape. The boulders pertaining to the megalithic structures in the study area potentially yield information on their geological age and origin, but they do not provide evidence of when or by whom the structures were erected nor their possible function. In archaeology, the...

The relation of man to his surrounding environment and the diachronic, dynamic changes of settlement patterns on a regional scale are key aspects for the understanding of past landscapes. These aspects are central issues on the research agenda of a project focusing on the Roman Republican and Imperial Era in central Italy, for which geoarchaeological field research is combined with GIS based analysis of settlement site preference factors.

The study area is situated in south-western Lazio, the immediate hinterland of Rome (fig.1). A geoarchaeological overview survey was conducted in 2009, mainly focusing on the area between the Alban hills and...

The study of ancient rural landscapes has quite a long tradition of interdisciplinarity, involving archaeologists, historians, geo-archaeologists, archaeobotanists and archaeozoologists (Rapp & Hill 1998; Wilkinson & Stevens 2003). The study of the medieval urban landscape, however, has mainly been the playground of urban historians, geographers and archaeologists (Heers 1990; Whitehand & Larkham 1992; Verhulst 1999; Lilley 2002; Schofield & Vince 2003). Nevertheless, since the late 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, we have witnessed a growing interest in urban soil. Natural scientists became increasingly involved in the study of urban contexts (Macphail 1981; Barles et al. 1999). Nowadays, urban archaeology has also become...

The Palpa Valley, a river oasis at the foot of the Andes in the desert of coastal southern Peru (fig. 1), has been inhabited for at least 3500 years. Settlement was based on irrigation agriculture which by distributing sediment-laden river water to the fields has created thick accumulations of irragic anthrosol (Hesse & Baade 2009). The Palpa Valley is a wide valley floor that is shared by the rivers Rio Palpa and Rio Vizcas and that has an area of approximately 15 km². Because mean annual precipitation is less than 10mm (ONERN 1971), agriculture depended completely on irrigation with river water...

He tends to linger over the plain, which is the setting for the leading actors of the day, and does not seem eager to approach the high mountains nearby. More than one historian who has never left the towns and their archives would be surprised to discover their existence. And yet how can one ignore these conspicuous actors, the half-wild mountains, where man has taken root like a hardy plant; always semi-deserted, for man is constantly leaving them? How can one ignore them when often their sheer slopes come right down to the sea’s edge? The mountain dweller is a...

This paper represents the initial step of our ongoing research into the interactive processes between people and landscape in the Holocene landscape of the Grosseto Area (Southern Tuscany, Italy).

The study area is an alluvial coastal plain that has been characterised by substantial changes during the last 20,000 years. From a Landscape Archaeology perspective, the understanding of these dynamic conditions is fundamental to the investigation of prehistoric settlement strategies as part of the general Man-Environment relationship. Moreover, analysis of the landscape evolution can contribute essential clues to understanding the settlement strategies that occurred from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age...

The arid regions of western NSW Australia have an abundant archaeological record that is highly visible due to the significant loss of topsoil caused by overgrazing since the late 19th century. Erosion has exposed stone artefacts and the remains of heat retainer hearths that are the legacy of intermittent occupation by Aboriginal people stretching back into the Late Pleistocene. An extensive, visible archaeological record, where stone artefacts and hearths reflect people’s presence in the landscape, offers the opportunity for understanding mobility within a settlement system. However, the temptation to study mobility via a ‘dots on maps’ approach, i.e. where a...

Anyone conducting an intensive archaeological field survey has been forced to consider to what degree an adequate picture of the past can be built on the basis of the finds detected on the surface. Or to put it another way: to which extent do surface assemblages concur with subsurface assemblages, and how can possible differences be explained and taken into account? Scholars working in the Aegean have in general believed that developments in the regional history could be constructed on the basis of surface assemblages, although at the same time being aware of the fact that such assemblages to some...

For those not so closely involved in the development of digital techniques within and outside (landscape) archaeology, it may not always be appreciated how quickly the digital world is changing. A short look at the amount and variety of software tools available for landscape archaeologists nowadays shows the speed at which these processes move. Freeware and open source packages like Python, Meshlab, Land-Serf, Depthmap, gvSIG, Google Sketchup, Whitebox GAT, NetLogo, R and GeoDa may all be used for specific tasks that are of interest to (landscape) archaeologists. This list is far from exhaustive; and yet, almost all of these packages...

In the heart of the central Cordillera of the Andes in Peru, the region of Ayacucho displays a landscape of mountains and enclosed hot valleys with a great ecological diversity, which have been favourable to human settlement since the Archaic period 10,000 years ago (Mac Neish et al. 1983). After the formative period (500 BC to 200 AD), which is still little known, it is during the middle Horizon, between 500 and 1000 AD, that the region became the centre for the emergence and development of the Wari culture which spread across a large part of the central Andes (Isbell...

Over the last 20 years, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been widely but unevenly applied to archaeological data across Europe (Wagtendonk et al. 2009, 75-78), mostly in Northern Europe. Spanish, and more precisely Andalusian, archaeology has been slower to take advantage of GIS methods. This does not to imply a total lack of GIS application; a number of researchers in the Guadalquivir valley and thecampiñaof Seville have been using GIS to positive effect (e.g. González Acuña 2001; Keay et al. 2001).

An insight into the development of human occupation in the Pre-Roman and Roman periods in Central Andalusia...

Archaeological predictive modelling (APM) is often used with the underlying meaning of predictive modelling applied to heritage management. For this reason predictive modelling is the focus of much controversy and debate. The main issue of this debate is whether predictive modelling should be used as a tool in establishing a heritage managing policy. The purpose of this paper is not to enter such a debate but rather to emphasise that the role of predictive modelling is not limited to heritage management.

Foremost predictive modelling provides a systematic approach to understand settlement location choices of past populations. With the use of...

The federal state Baden-Württemberg in south-western Germany is rich in archaeological heritage from the Palaeolithic onwards. Numerous Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age, Roman, Merovingian, medieval and early modern sites make Baden-Württemberg a region of great archaeological importance (cf. LAD 2009, for an overview of recent archaeological research in Baden-Württemberg). Of particular importance are sites dating to the early Celtic period like the hill fort Heuneburg – perhaps the earliest urban settlement north of the Alps – and the Upper German and Rhætian segment of the Roman Limes, a part of the UNESCO World Heritage system.

However, it is unknown to...

The Christian religious orders have bequeathed a great amount of spiritual and cultural heritage that embraces all the Christian parts of the European continent. Since their establishment, these orders were the determinants of the prevailing intellectual life. From the Middle Ages, all works that contributed to the spread of literacy were centred in the monasteries for centuries. The heritage of different monastic orders, however, manifests itself not only in intangible, but in material ways as well, seen directly in their environment. Depending on their monastic aims, religious orders settled either in towns or on the contrary, in peaceful, natural environments...

The archaeological study of local and regional long-term landscape change can be approached from many perspectives. Survey Archaeology, Regional Analysis and Landscape Archaeology are three major, interdependent approaches to this subject, employed to study how people exploited and experienced their surroundings, addressing questions including: How did natural and social resources and contexts influence the creation and development of settlement? Conversely, how did past societies manage and develop their surroundings to reshape the landscape? How are the cumulative results of these actions reflected in the modern landscape?

Based on a case study at Besançon (Doubs, France) (fig.1), for which we present...

The project ‘Princely Sites’ & Environs (‘Fürstensitze” & Umland, funded by the German Research Foundation within the framework of the Priority Programme ‘Early Processes of Centralisation and Urbanisation – Studies on the Development of Early Celtic Princely Seats and their Hinterland’, http://www.fuerstensitze.de) is investigating the so-called ‘Princely Sites’ or ‘Fürstensitze’ of the Early Iron Age around 500 BC in south-western Germany, eastern France and comparable places in Bavaria and western Bohemia (http://www.fuerstensitze.de/1121).

Following a definition mainly described by W. Kimmig (1969), ‘Fürstensitze’ are rich fortified settlements, mainly situated on a hilltop, with large and rich grave mounds in their vicinity and with...

In spring 2009, a European project, short-named ‘Radio-Past’, was launched within the FP7 Marie Curie framework ‘Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways’. The project, fully titled ‘Radiography of the past, integrated non-destructive approaches to understand and valorise complex archaeological sites’, aims to join different resources and skills to improve, refine and validate intensive archaeological surveys on complex sites, with a special focus on abandoned ancient urban sites in the Mediterranean. A consortium of seven partners merges academic institutions – University of Évora (P), Ghent University (B), University of Ljubljana (Sl) and the British School at Rome (UK), with private companies: 7Reasons Media...

LiDAR data and derived digital elevation models (DEM) have been available in the Netherlands since 2001. The detailed measurements of the ground surface at metre and sub-metre resolution generate spectacular images of the relief, revealing the natural landscape, archaeological and historical geographical features as well as features relating to modern human activities (Laan & Van Zijverden 2004; Waldus & Van der Velde 2006; Van Zijverden & Zuidhoff 2009). LiDAR measures with a resolution and accuracy hitherto unavailable, except through labour-intensive field survey or photogrammetry (Bewley et al. 2005). The LiDAR-based images contribute to studies based on geological and historic mapping and archaeological data,...

It would be a brave, not to say foolhardy person who would venture to predict how landscape archaeology will have developed in ten or twenty years’ time; in the words of the old joke, I had to tell my Amsterdam audience that owing to unforeseen circumstances, the clairvoyant would not be making an appearance. In any case, these days, people in England who wish to be taken seriously never say ‘in future’; instead, Margaret Thatcher’s children say ‘going forward’, to indicate how focused and businesslike they are. And of course there are no ‘problems’ anymore, just ‘challenges’. Approaches and buzzwords...

The organisation of a first international conference devoted exclusively to ‘landscape archaeology’ implied a coming of age for a discipline which (although its many sub-types vary in age, with some countries having longer traditions than others) is nevertheless mainly relatively young. The conference could not represent every part of Landscape Archaeology’s broad scope, and there have been substantial sessions devoted to Landscape Archaeology at other international conferences, notably EAA and WAC. In its special focus, aspiration and consciousness, however, LAC2010 represented an important milestone and it is to be hoped that it will become as established in future years as,...

If archaeology involves study of people (present and past) through their material and if landscape is perception of an area that has been affected by both natural and human actions (Council of Europe 2000), then landscape archaeology should necessarily be widely inclusive in terms of subject, method and discipline. Archaeologists help society, communities, and individuals appreciate that landscape is more than environment: that it is doubly cultural – a cultural product culturally perceived. They also continually confirm that landscape is fundamentally a product of change, and so help prepare society and its members to cope with and take control of...

Nowadays the word ‘landscape’ is in. It obviously sounds sexy to archaeologists in 2010. Starting some years ago, there were a growing number of archaeological publications proudly bearing ‘landscape’ in their titles. Simultaneously the word ‘environment’ is losing its prominent position on the front page of archaeological books and papers. Does this reflect a new type of research, a new topic in archaeology – or is it just one of the fashionable sound bites of the new millenium? In my eyes there are some indications of this last suggestion; the word ‘landscape’ today at least partly acting as an envelope...

This paper has as its aim the setting out of issues of knowledge construction and knowledge evaluation in landscape archaeology. It forsakes some of the more detailed and advanced dicussions of the field (for which see Johnson 2007; David & Thomas 2008; Tilley 1994, 2004; Bender 1998; Thomas 1999; Ingold 2000; Bender et al. 2008; Smith 2003). Instead, it goes back to basics: asks how landscape archaeologists find out about the past, and in particular, how they make a judgment as to whether their interpretations are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, are or are not supported by evidence. My desire is to strengthen...