INDG 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Landscape Archaeology, Bounded Set, Geomorphology
9 Jun 2018
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January 11th, 2018
Anth 450: Landscape Archaeology
Continuation of Introduction and Discussion of Bender, Wandsnider, and Marquardt
- We asked before what are the stakes of landscape
- [Note: Crumley understands nature as the environment]
What we want to do:
- Focus on relationality, so a combination, not just a dichotomy between interior
and exterior factors
- Bring time back into the equation – this is critical for our understanding of space
- Bender: “Landscape as time materialized”
o Landscape and place are subjective (but we need to avoid unproductive
relativism in this case)
▪ Subjectivity rests within historically contingent cultural logics
▪ Cultural logics build from historical relations
Why is landscape useful for archaeology?
- Landscape is good for integrating relations (social, material, cultural, etc)
- Problem with settlement studies is that they focus only on sites (Marquardt and
Crumley do this)
o They also both use effective scale: they see something happening on
particular scales
▪ Contraction and dialation of scalar attention
- Archaeological landscapes: empirical (not the same as landscapes in general)
o These kinds of landscapes are not what we want
- We want to take a configurational approach to landscape
o This means building landscapes at multiple scales – landscapes are not just
places
o We are not bounded by a scalar unit (unlike a site)
What is at stake?
- Provides a framing of activity: much research currently is bounded by scales, both
spatial and physical
- Unwillingness to see between sites
o E.g. relations between organization within areas (buildings, agriculture,
etc)
Recap:
1. History of landscapes: they are remade through practice
a. Landscapes are a history of relations
b. Archaeological landscapes are important for temporal and spatial
dimension
2. Relationality: people, places, things, environments, ages, structures, and so on
a. Boundedness; we cannot forget that boundaries are socially constructed
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Document Summary
Continuation of introduction and discussion of bender, wandsnider, and marquardt. We asked before what are the stakes of landscape. Focus on relationality, so a combination, not just a dichotomy between interior and exterior factors. Bring time back into the equation this is critical for our understanding of space. Bender: landscape as time materialized : landscape and place are subjective (but we need to avoid unproductive relativism in this case, subjectivity rests within historically contingent cultural logics, cultural logics build from historical relations. Landscape is good for integrating relations (social, material, cultural, etc) Problem with settlement studies is that they focus only on sites (marquardt and. Crumley do this: they also both use effective scale: they see something happening on particular scales, contraction and dialation of scalar attention. Archaeological landscapes: empirical (not the same as landscapes in general: these kinds of landscapes are not what we want.
