Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science : From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

The publication of this book is made possible by grants from: All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.Every effort had been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book.Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. PrefaceSince the 1960s, 'landscape' has been a key topic of archaeological research all over the world. Initially drawing on environmental archaeology, and using models from the earth sciences as well as cultural ecology, landscapes have been conceptualised predominantly as the natural environments determining human behaviour or as a backdrop to human action. In the New Archaeology of the 1960s, ecology and settlement patterns were studied together with anthropology, with the aim of piecing together information on past economic and social systems (Trigger 1989, 295). Lewis Binford argued that the goal of archaeology should be to understand the range of human behaviours and the differences in culture, based on a belief that cultures were adaptive responses to our environment (Binford 1962), and archaeologists at the time were optimistic that culture and culture change were rational and could be predicted based on archaeological assemblages and settlement patterns.In This volume will begin with a discussion of Landscape Archaeology and its history, followed by a discussion of themes and summaries of the papers in this volume. We end with some concluding remarks 10 · landscape archaeology between art and science and suggestions for future research. Although the editors have put a lot of energy into editing the text of this volume, please note that many contributors are writing in English as a second language. We have endeavoured to smooth out the English, but we apologise for the awkwardness of some phrasing in the text.All 35 papers of the LAC2010 proceedings have been peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. The editors have approached a large number of peer reviewers within the participating institution within the VU University, the Cultural Heritage Agency and the international Advisory Board of LAC2010. We wish to thank the following colleagues who have made the realisation of the proceedings of LAC2010 possible.