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Landscape Archaeology: introductory notes
Overview
This short introduction to Landscape Archaeology attempts to explain what it is that landscape
archaeologists are interested in, how they define ‘landscape’, and, referring to simple modern and
ancient case-studies, it considers the perspective of the landscape archaeologist.
Landscape archaeologists are interested in how landscapes change and evolve over time. They are
particularly interested in the ways humans affected and negotiated change in the past. They always
consider the impact of humans on the environment or natural world, and how past peoples
regarded the environment. They think about how each generation responds or responded to all the
things, tangible and intangible, it inherited from the previous generation(s).
Landscape archaeology teaches us that the things that influence change are much the same today as
they were in the past. This is because all change is refracted through a cultural lens, meaning that
culture, and above all social values, shape the choices we make, personally and at a societal level.
Landscape archaeology also teaches us that how we change and adapt the places and landscapes we
live and work in over the course of our lives creates a sort of biography on the landscape, we leave
behind a record not just of our activities but also of our attitudes and values.
Introduction
Archaeologists have always been interested in finding out about
the landscapes that past peoples lived in, how they shaped
those landscapes to their own needs and purposes, and how
those landscapes in turn shaped human behaviour. The peoples
of the world’s great deserts and polar regions may, for
example, have had little effect on the landscapes they inhabit
but conversely they themselves have been greatly influenced in
terms of their lifestyles, dress, architecture, and diet by extremes of heat, cold and dryness. Though
somewhat exceptional, such cases highlight the interactions that occur between people and the
environment the world over. In other places, particularly
where agriculture and industry are possible, humans have
greatly adapted and changed the environment to serve their
own ends. However, they too have been shaped by the world
around them. Sometimes it is not the environment but rather
the cultural legacy of former generations, the things they
built, the way they worked the land or designed towns and
cities and so on, that is the dominant force in shaping
people’s lives and influencing their choices. This is possibly most apparent in urban contexts, where
the natural world is all but drowned out by the ‘built’ or ‘cultural’ world.
In short, the choices people make about how and where to live, where and what types of buildings
to construct, where and what types of food to make and eat and so on, are influenced by complex
mixtures of the natural environment (topography, hydrology, climate, soils, etc), the cultural or
culturalized environment, ie the ‘built’ world, moulded by human hands, customs and traditions,
stories, placenames, etc, and free will, that is the freedom that each generation has to make its own
mark on the world, to adopt, change or reject what has been inherited at birth from former
generations. Landscape archaeologists have developed approaches to understanding these
processes in the case of past human societies.
Shaped by Culture: the meaning of the term ‘landscape’
We exercise our freedom and capacity to shape the world to our own purpose based on values that
are shaped, and passed on from one generation to the next, by culture, (education, socio-
economics, gender, politics, custom, etc). The world we are born into is not a blank canvas; it is
already populated and already has a history
and is presented to us as a ‘way of living’ or
lifestyle, a this-is-the-way-things-are-done
sort of guidebook to life. Each generation
has to learn about it, how to navigate,
negotiate and sometimes challenge social
norms, how to hold on to the things we like,
change the things we don’t, and invent ways
and things to satisfy new needs. (Life is
complicated!) Theoreticians argue that,
more so than any other creatures, we humans shape the world in our own image. In short we
culturalize the world. The term used to distinguish this ‘culturalised’ world ―the one we really
inhabit― from the ‘natural’ environment, is LANDSCAPE.
The choices we make (or ones that are forced on us) and the actions that ensue often have material
expression. As consumers we make choices all the time about products. Real products leave real
traces. In time, these become artefacts of past societies. Just as today it is possible to say quite a lot
about someone based on their consumer choices (where and how they live, the sort of car they
drive, etc), archaeologists can do the same, albeit in a more limited way, by studying ancient objects,
buildings and places.
Landscape archaeologists, therefore, start out from the principle that the LANDSCAPE was and is
meaningful, and that occasionally it is possible to unearth the past meanings of monuments and
places by analysing their design and layout. To a landscape archaeologist every building and place
has cultural meanings that influence their location, layout, design, name, etc; Of course these can
change over time but, as mentioned already, this always occurs in a social context, is always based
on value-informed choices. In that sense, past landscapes were, even if only in an informal way,
ordered and managed according to the social norms and dreams of the given community or society.
What landscape archaeologists are interested in.
Landscape archaeologists are particularly interested in how choices that affected spatial
development were made in the past, as well as what informed those choices. Put another way,
landscape archaeologists try to understand and explain what changes happened, and how they were
managed, in ancient, and sometimes quite recent, landscapes.
Take for example the case of Stonehenge. Built as a great open-air temple, Stonehenge is just one
component in a vast complex of religious monuments connected by avenues of aligned stones, etc.
Not all of the monuments were built at the same time, so we should consider it to have been a
prolonged, work-in-progress, each new monument adding something important to England’s largest
and most ambitious religious landscape.
Fast-forward to the 20th century when an old a stage-coach route close to Stonehenge was widened
and tarmacked, turning into the A303. Now a major east-west artery for cars and lorries crossing the
Salisbury Plain, the A303 has greatly changed the landscape, cut Stonehenge off from the northern
half of the ancient religious complex, and affected the ambience of the monument with traffic noise
and light pollution.
Whereas the ‘modernising’ of the road may not have been universally popular, it was, nevertheless,
built and therefore represents the values of the day. Today the British Government is considering
spending hundreds of millions of pounds of tax-payers’ money to
divert the road underground in order to restore something of the
quiet, rural and indeed spiritual ambience of the site and to repair
the Stonehenge landscape. Here is a case that can be simplified
down to a sequence of buildings informed by three contrasting
value systems, each one revealing different social values.
While this may be a quite extreme example of how contrasting value systems affect the evolution of
a place, processes such as these are on-going in every landscape, shaping and re-shaping them to fit
the values and requirements of each generation.
Landscapes are complex
Humans have lots of different needs. We create complex places to sustain us, from the cradle to the
grave: domestic dwellings, retail outlets, schools, hospitals, sportsgrounds, government buildings,
fields and so on. How we position these relative to one another is determined as much by practical
considerations such commuting distances, travel frequency, traffic management, as it is by customs
and politics. Regardless of the precise rationale at play, the result is a mirror to how we really live
and what are our true values. Think of where halting sites are located versus where so-called ‘flag-
ship retail outlets’ are put or where key public buildings or iconic monuments are. Not all of our
decisions concerning spatial planning are edifying. Regardless, these modern examples reveal the
end-goal of landscape archaeology, which is to try to tell the story of ancient places based on what
can be detected of the attitudes/values that shaped them, and in particular how attitudes towards
what already existed influenced the design and siting of new-builds.
Newgrange provides a good example of this. It seems that the circle of
stones around the great mound came later. They not only observe
and respect the earlier sanctity of the place but in fact even amplify it.
Similarly, Tara, also in county Meath, is a story of monument building
stretching over five thousand years. Although there obviously wasn’t
a master-plan from the start, it seems that each new monument
complemented what was already there, re-enforcing the sanctity of the place. More than that,
however, some monuments were designed and positioned to appropriate older ones. The builders
of Tech Chormaic, for instance, placed it close beside the Forrad (the assembly mound of Tara)
appropriating or taking ownership of it by extending a bank around both
earthworks. In short, the intentions / ambitions of the people who built
Tech Chormaic are made clear in the way they ‘cosy up’ against a more
ancient monument at Tara, basking in the reflected historical glory of a
very ancient monument and assuming some of its great history and
reputation.
Filling-in the missing pieces
Most ancient landscapes are incomplete, bits are missing and erosion and later human activity have
erased key elements. Archaeologists employ a range of techniques to try to recover the missing
pieces, such as aerial survey, geophysics, Lidar survey,
geochemistry, excavation and topographical survey, field-walking.
Ancient maps and historical documents can also help identify lost
monuments. The 1st edition Ordnance Survey maps, dating from the
mid-1800s, give us a picture of pre-industrial Ireland, showing a
landscape that pre-dated large-scale mechanisation. Many more
ring-forts are visible on these maps than exist today. Some maps
date back to the 17th century.
Oral history, folklore, place- and field-names are all useful sources of information. Not only do they
help fill in the blanks, they also speak to attitudes towards the landscape that reveal how change
was negotiated from generation to generation. In Ireland, for instance, there was once a strongly-
held belief that ring-forts and mounds were where the fairies lived, and that bad luck would be
visited on anyone who damaged one. While this belief protected many monuments from
destruction, it also reveals how our not-too-distant ancestors made sense of things that were
beyond the reach of memory. Once the original purpose of many mounds around the country was
forgotten new explanations were needed. For instance it was once thought mounds should not be
disturbed because they were where the Túatha Dé Dannan, a magical tribe led by the goddess Anú,
who, according to mythology, were among the first arrivals in Ireland, dwelt after having being
underground by a later wave of early colonists. This gave birth to the tradition of the Síd or Fairy
Mound. Such beliefs are fast falling to a more secular, monetised set of values.
Take-home messages
1. Landscape archaeology is about how places evolve and change over time
2. The term ‘landscape’ means the ‘culturalised’ world (remember, even nature is culturalised,
eg sacred trees; sacred springs; placenaming…)