Space archeology

Introduction

Landscape archaeology or spatial archaeology is an archaeological paradigm (that is, a set of theoretical concepts, methodologies and analytical procedures) that focuses on analyzing, through material culture, the spatial dimension of human groups and the different activities they practiced.[1] That is, on exploring how human beings have related to geographical space over time, appropriating it, transforming it with their work and endowing it with different cultural meanings.

Landscape archeology encompasses a varied set of approaches to the archaeological record, which have in common prioritizing the spatial dimension of human action. The landscape can cover three roles in this type of work:

• - be a context that allows giving more and better meaning to the material remains (for example, through the analysis of settlement patterns);

• - be an objective of the work: to reconstruct the appearance and forms of the landscape at a time in the past (for example, through paleoenvironmental analysis);

• - be the essential object of the work: consider that the current landscape is in itself a part of the archaeological record, the most visible form of object that past (and present) human groups have produced.

Origin

The ultimate origin of most of the proposals and concepts that have given rise to the different forms of Landscape Archeology is in geography.[2] At the end of the century, geographers such as Ratzel, Hettner, Slütter or Vidal de la Blache claimed, although from different and even opposite postulates, the central role of the interaction between human groups and their environments, giving rise to the first schools of Regional Geography.

Two developments based on some of these ideas will have, starting in the middle of the century, a direct impact on the field of anthropology first, and archeology later. On the one hand, the incorporation of Vidal de la Blache's proposals into the theoretical framework of the French Annales school. On the other hand, the development of the so-called Cultural Geography, with the figure of Carl O. Sauer (Berkeley School) in the United States being especially notable.

The first of these trajectories will be developed mainly in the area of Mediterranean Europe, especially in France. It is an archeology of landscapes oriented above all to the recognition of the forms of ancient agrarian spaces and the reconstruction of the social processes that led to their formation. This archaeological tradition is based on the detailed recognition and documentation of the forms currently visible in the landscape, giving ample weight to the use of information sources such as aerial photography (whose development in archeology is largely linked to this type of approach). Often complementing this information with the use of documentary sources (such as historical cadastres), a multitude of works have been developed that have allowed us to reconstruct the forms of past agrarian spaces (especially from historical periods, such as the Roman or Medieval period, for which there is relevant written documentation), and the productive and social processes that gave rise to them.

Space archeology

Introduction

• - be a context that allows giving more and better meaning to the material remains (for example, through the analysis of settlement patterns);

• - be an objective of the work: to reconstruct the appearance and forms of the landscape at a time in the past (for example, through paleoenvironmental analysis);

Origin

Trends and directions

Within current Landscape Archeology there is room for a certain variety of approaches, which emphasize relatively disparate concepts, but which have in common locating in the geographical space the most appropriate working context for a more global and complete understanding of the archaeological record. Landscape Archeology is defined as work that ranges from the analysis of settlement patterns to strictly phenomenological approaches, passing through the different forms of cultural ecology, regional analysis, paleoenvironmental studies or agrarian archaeology. Although there seems to be a certain consensus in considering that the most characteristic form of Landscape Archeology is that derived from post-processual proposals and centered around the analysis of the symbolic dimensions of space,[6] the truth is that there is a wide variety of perspectives related to landscape in archaeology.

In recent years, the most notable development trajectories that are perceived are three. On the one hand, the important development of so-called geospatial technologies (geographic information systems, remote sensing, etc.) has revolutionized all areas of research in which geographic space is a key element. Archeology has not been left aside, and it is increasingly common to find new examples and developments related to the application of techniques and tools from this field.[7] Its applications are very varied, and although many of them have more to do with the field of heritage management (detection of archaeological elements, detailed documentation, diagnosis of conservation states, analysis and prediction of impacts...), their importance in the analysis and research processes is no less important. In fact, some authors are beginning to talk about the development of a digital archeology of the landscape.[8].

Secondly, developments related to paleoenvironmental analysis and reconstruction have recently represented another important qualitative leap. This is the case not only due to the development of new analytical techniques, but mainly due to the approach of novel perspectives related to the study of the interaction between human groups and the environment, such as the entire set of problems linked to the concepts of ecological footprint and global change.[9] Landscape Archeology has been providing important knowledge to assess, in long-term perspectives, the scope of fully current problems such as climate change or the preservation of biodiversity.

Finally, and in relation to the above, the landscape, through the category of Cultural Landscapes,[10] has become a reference for the management and planning of the uses of the territory, as is clearly evident in the fact that it has begun to be a normatively or even legally recognized figure (for example, in the European Landscape Convention). Landscape, as an integrative concept, requires for its characterization the collaboration of different disciplines (geography, sociology, anthropology, history, art history, environmentalism). Archeology has come to play at this point the fundamental role of recognizing its historical meaning, its quality as a long-produced and recreated social product.

Trends and directions

Navegación

Space archeology

Introduction

Origin

Space archeology

Introduction

Origin

Notes on frequently used methodologies, techniques and procedures

Trends and directions

References

Notes on frequently used methodologies, techniques and procedures

Trends and directions

References