Landscape archaeology is a certain
discipline within archaeology that focus on the study of landscape. According
to Chapman, “landscape archaeology is a term commonly used to characterise
those areas of archaeological research and interpretation that consider the
landscape as opposed to the site, the interrelationship between sites and the
physical spaces separating them” (Chapman 2009: 11). The branch incorporates a
wide arrange of methods from many other disciplines and is not entirely easy to
define. Chapman divides landscape archaeology into three separate branches,
using different methods. The first one has tried to trace the history of a
landscape by removing later “layers” and using methods such as field morphology
and cartography in order to “see the landscape as it was”. Data from aerial
photography and field surveys have also been incorporated. The second branch
have focused on using methods from natural sciences to reconstruct past
landscapes. This includes paleobothanic studies, macrofossil samples etc. The
most recent branch in landscape archaeology, according to Chapman, is the study
of the qualitative aspects of landscape (Chapman 2009: 11-14):
The approach has focus focused on elements of experience, the point of
departure being that maps and plans of a landscape are an abstraction of the
world and consequently cannot be relied upon alone when attempting to interpret
what it is to be within a landscape.
(Chapman 2009: 14).
Because landscape archaeology is engaged in
the study of “landscape”, one of the central questions within the discipline
is: “What is landscape and how should it be described?”
Traditional archaeology thought of the
landscape merely as the backdrop for archaeological sites and remains.
Landscape was therefore considered a passive force in the formation of human
societies. Today this has changed, and the landscape is viewed as a more active
entity where apart from studies of its economic dimensions also the
socio-symbolic meanings of landscape is important and central to modern
interpretations.
According to Johnson (2007), two main themes
dominate the western perception of landscape:
1.
The “land” itself, however defined: the humanly
created features that exist “objectively” across space, and their natural
context. Landscape archaeology in this sense is a very simple term to define:
it is about what lies beyond the site, or the edge of the excavation.
2.
How “the land” is viewed – how we, and people in the
past, came to apprehend and understand the landscape, and what those systems of
apprehension and understanding are, the cognitive systems and processes of
perception.
(Johnson 2007: 3-4).
This in many ways illustrate what Chapman
and Dell'Unto describes as the more traditional and the “recent” approach to
landscape archaeology. In Johnsons book however, it seems like the
phenomenological landscape archaeology at least in the historical English
tradition have been present since the birth of the discipline, where men such
as W.G. Hoskins emphasised the need to study the physical landscape through
“real experience”. The people of the past were directly connected (the
ancestors) to the present day people and therefore through using “common
sense”, the landscape could be read and understood. Johnson instead argues for
a more anthropological approach to phenomenological interpretation where we
recognise the fact that past people might have had a very different set of
ideas than ours (Johnson 2007).
According to me, landscape archaeology is
the archaeology mainly concerned with creating larger scale interpretations,
putting archaeological remains into their context. Landscape is a perspective,
a sort of scale that does not focus merely on a single site or excavation, but
on a larger area. This includes both human and natural geographical phenomena
that might have made an impact on the object of study. It is also interesting,
I believe, that landscape archaeology have been so devoid of theoretical
thinking and argumentation. Most of times, it is assumed that if you have the
right “knowledge”, the landscape speaks for itself. Johnson argues that it is
this anti-theoretical thinking that for example led Richard Muir to assume that
“The academic study of the relationship between landscape and human behaviour
is in its infancy (Johnson 2007: 2)”. Muir was apparently not aware of the
extensive studies of this subject by phenomenologists such as Heidegger and
Gadamer (Johnson 2007: 2). This in my opinion leads to problems, as landscape
can not be disconnected from either theory or practice. Theoretical thought can
lead us towards new ways of thinking, and especially makes us more self-aware
and critical, possibly guiding us towards more “valid” interpretations.
REFERENCES:
Chapman, H.
(2009). Landscape Archaeology and GIS. Tempus Publishing: Didcot.
Johnson, M.
(2007). Ideas of Landscape. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford.
