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This article discusses elite continuity and settlement pattern change in Zagori (NW Greece) from the late fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The peaceful assimilation of the regional and local elites into the Ottoman Empire (1430) led to adaptations in the montane landscape. Imperial and local archival research, ethnography, and landscape archaeology reveal that the Ottoman administration divided large decentralized settlements into smaller villages to accommodate local elites and new timariots. This topography of division (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) gave way to a topography of adaptation (seventeenth to nineteenth centuries) when local elites influenced settlement patterns in forming the administrative unit the Zagorisian League. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors present the salient archaeological results of a diachronic, interdisciplinary research project on rural settlement and land use in a region of low mountains in southern Germany. Despite clear locational disadvantages, in particular great distances to drinking water sources, archaeological excavations and an extensive dating programme document an unexpectedly long continuity of prehistoric settlement in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the material evidence of roads in the northwestern Maya Lowlands that were in use from the Middle Preclassic (800–300 BC) through the Late Classic (AD 700–900) period in Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexico. The study includes archaeological evidence recovered from field research in an area covering approximately 670 km2 and 618 recorded archaeological sites. It presents the physical characteristics of a series of piedmont paths that connected the region from the Usumacinta River to the Tulijá River, including large population centers such as Palenque and Chinikihá. The study uses a geographic information system (GIS) least cost path (LCP) analysis to identify the location of roads and how they relate to regional settlement patterns. It also tests the use of modern computational models to advance regional studies in the Maya area. Study results show how the Classic Maya adapted and appropriated the region's topography to facilitate movement, long-term settlement, and the building of landesque capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Roman Archaeology is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent years have seen the rapid expansion of airborne and spaceborne remote-sensing products adopted by archaeologists for interpreting ancient landscapes and managing heritage resources. A growing and increasingly specialized literature attests to the promise and availability of commercial and publicly funded satellite imagery, as well as UAV-mounted sensors across a range of resolutions and price points. In the South Caucasus (including the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), a growing commitment to landscape approaches in archaeology is stimulating the adoption of satellite remote sensing as an important new tool for identifying and managing archaeological resources while tracing the impact of historic land-use alterations in survey areas. Nevertheless, budgetary challenges and a lack of training opportunities among international partners and heritage organizations outside of the funding streams of large academic institutions can lead to widening technological gulfs in the discipline that reinforce colonial relationships. Building on recent technical articles covering specific imagery datasets, this article aims to address this by providing a general review of free or low-cost remotely sensed datasets available to archaeologists, with the aim of broadening awareness of these important tools and their vocabularies, and illustrating them with recent published examples from the South Caucasus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, archaeologists have been using human-occupied interactive digital built environments to investigate human agency, settlement, and behavior. To document this evidence, we provide here one method of conducting drone-based photogrammetry and GIS mapping from within these digital spaces based on well-established methods conducted in physical landscapes. Mapping is an integral part of archaeology in the natural world, but it has largely eluded researchers in these new, populated digital landscapes. We hope that our proposed method helps to resolve this issue. We argue that employing archaeological methods in digital environments provides a successful methodological framework to investigate human agency in digital spaces for anthropological purposes and has the potential for extrapolating data from human-digital landscape interactions and applying them to their natural analogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although studies of warfare are now common in Maya archaeology, much remains to be learned about strategy, tactics, and various other practical factors in the process of making war. An emphasis on the concrete and practical is necessary to both acknowledge agency and understand how conflict relates to the human experience. Through an examination of documentary and archaeological data in a comparative framework, I elaborate on practices of Maya fortification construction and how the creation of a martial landscape ties into relations of power during the Late Postclassic/Early Spanish Colonial period (a.d. 1200–1600). During this period, in the region of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico, Maya peoples fortified a peninsula according to principles of defense-in-depth. In other words, they created layers of fortification to slow and stall an attack. My analysis reveals how the creation of a martial landscape shaped local culture by incorporating elements of sacred geography and ritual landscape to perpetuate social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite advocacy of landscape approaches in cultural resource management (CRM) and critiques of the site concept, CRM data collection methods in the western United States continue to focus on individual archaeological sites as units of observation, analysis, and management. The transect-recording unit (TRU) method strikes a balance between conventional site-based recording methods and site-less survey approaches by dividing survey space into a grid of uniformly sized cells for recording all cultural manifestations observed across a survey area. TRU survey generates site boundaries required by CRM regulations while retaining a fine-grained spatial framework for landscape-level research and management. This article discusses the technical requirements of the TRU system and its potential for improving landscape-level research and management. Advances in digital recording technologies and analysis techniques render the method efficient and effective in identifying cultural resource distributions and characteristics otherwise obscured by conventional approaches. The research and management potential of the TRU system is illustrated through identification and interpretation of precontact foot trails in New Mexico's Tularosa Basin. These trails are essentially invisible during pedestrian survey but are readily identifiable as linear patterns using aggregated landscape-scale TRU survey data from multiple survey projects, providing novel insight into precontact routes of movement and exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers of the British School at Rome is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The places in which people live and spend time are steeped in history, memory, and meaning from the intersection of daily life, environmental interactions, cultural practices, and ritual. Geologic features, plants, animals, and ecosystems merge with these cultural histories, forming critical parts of the landscape and areas of "high cultural salience," or "cultural keystone places" (CKPs). We identify Kumqaq' (Point Conception) and the surrounding area in California as a Chumash CKP. Ethnohistoric accounts and contemporary Chumash community members have long demonstrated the importance of Point Conception in Chumash worldview and identity, whereas biologists, ecologists, and conservationists reference the area's rich biodiversity and significance as a biogeographical boundary. Recent archaeological survey of the coastline surrounding Kumqaq' highlights these connections, identifying over 50 archaeological sites--including shell middens, villages, lithic scatters, and rock art--with at least 9,000 years of occupation. Ongoing collaborations among archaeologists, the Nature Conservancy, and Chumash community members help document and understand the long-term linkages between cultural and biological diversity and how integrating these perspectives can help ensure the resilience of this nexus of human and natural history in the Anthropocene future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is our contention that the "interpretational scaffold" offered so far by the application of globalization theories (Hodos 2020) does not truly commit to a micro-scale lens. Connecting proposals for a post-colonial global archaeology in the Mediterranean (and beyond) Not every community, across the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium B.C., took part in wider exchange networks, not every society adopted writing and not every society became urban: the interpretational scaffold as proposed by Hodos (2020) only goes to explain patterns already identified a priori and from a Greek and Phoenician perspective, rather than uncovering hitherto unidentified patterns, often to be found in societies not embracing the wider network-urbanism-writing exchange package. [Extracted from the article]

In recent years, digital technologies applied to archaeology have led to considerable changes in fieldwork. However, the use of mobile GIS for fieldwork has not been widespread, especially in countries where GIS is not yet entrenched within the field of archaeology. Over the last decade, the technological context associated with mobile GIS has changed. In this text, these changes are discussed based on a case study developed in Catamarca (Argentina), in which the possibilities of a more generalized use of mobile GIS—based on free, open, and available resources (software, data, devices)–are discussed. This article assesses the main problems faced and describes the basic steps taken to implement a field recording system based on mobile GIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The virtual removal of forest canopies through light detection and ranging (lidar) has enhanced archaeological interpretations of settlement patterns in tropical zones. Although lidar collections of Indigenous landscapes in the Caribbean Archipelago are limited, resolutions from open-access lidar datasets reveal coarse regional settlement patterns and large-scale architecture planning. In this article we inspect the Caguana Ceremonial complex in Utuado, Borikén (Puerto Rico), using a 2016 lidar dataset available through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration portal. Visual comparisons between known Indigenous sites, surface anomalies, and site inspections in the three sectors under study identified plazas, possible ancient paths into the Caguana complex, a possible agricultural area west of the site, and the ANG-4 site. This study, the first application of lidar inspections in Puerto Rican archaeology, demonstrates that open-access data can help guide research and save time in field surveys, thus improving our ability to protect the Indigenous cultural heritage hidden under forest canopies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscape archaeology has been widely used as a framework for understanding the myriad ways in which people lived in their natural and built environments. In this study, we use systematic survey data in conjunction with ceramic chronology building to explore how residents of the Lion Mountain area in Central New Mexico created and sustained community landscapes over time as memories and stories became linked with specific places. We combine practice theory with the concept of social memory to show that these residents used their community landscape to both maintain and transform community identity over multiple generations. To strengthen our argument, we use a dual temporal approach, considering our data both by "looking back" and "looking forward" in time relative to the residents living on the landscape. Ultimately, we argue that residents of the Lion Mountain Community lived and died within a community landscape of their making. This community landscape, which was maintained and transformed through collective memory, included significant landmarks and entailed participation in specific networks, helping to reinforce community identity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades some archaeologists have come to doubt key components and properties of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (EBA) Avebury monument complex. By site excavation of the Beckhampton Avenue, Silbury Hill, and the West Kennet Palisades the idea of an integrated group of contemporaneous monuments has been thrown into doubt. In this paper these critiques are themselves critiqued and further tested by an inter-disciplinary exercise integrating archaeology, landscape phenomenology, and archaeoastronomy. It is suggested that the emergent properties of this procedure reveal that these recent doubts are unfounded and that this monument complex was designed for rituals to initiate neophytes by simulating journeys through a virtual underworld. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The island of Sardinia is well known for its Late Neolithic and Copper Age underground rock-cut tombs that were used over generations for collective burials. Many tombs were decorated to resemble house interiors and cemeteries are often referred to as villages of the dead. Research so far has focused on excavating stratigraphic contexts within some of these monuments, or on typological classifications of tomb plans and wall decorations, but the landscape context of the cemeteries and their relationship to settlements have been overlooked. The article presents the results of two seasons of survey in Ossi (north-west Sardinia), focusing on two major cemeteries (Mesu 'e Montes and S'Adde 'e Asile). Combining fieldwalking, mapping and 3D recording techniques, the survey provides a comprehensive documentation of the cemeteries (from the underground architecture of individual tombs to their landscape setting) and yields evidence of prehistoric settlements in their vicinity. The article discusses the topographic and visual relationships between the tombs and the residential areas and how they may reflect social interactions between the living and the dead in late prehistoric Sardinia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) investigates settlement and land use from the Neolithic to the present in the Erbil Governorate of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which includes a large portion of the core of the Assyrian Empire. In seven field seasons, it has documented a broad settlement landscape in a region of great social and political importance, especially in the Bronze and Iron Ages, including 728 archaeological sites. Its field methodology combines traditional surface collection with the use of historical aerial and satellite photographs, mobile GIS, and UAV (drone) photogrammetry. Preliminary results show some unexpected patterns: a high density of culturally Uruk settlements in the fourth millennium B.C., variable urban morphologies in the Early Bronze Age; and large but low-density settlements at the end of the Sasanian period or the early Islamic period. The project is explicitly testing several hypotheses about centralized Neo-Assyrian landscape planning in the imperial core. These hypotheses appear to be confirmed, although the situation was more complex than in surrounding provinces, probably due to the longer history of continuous settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, Roman temples and shrines in Britain have been contextualised in relation to wider 'Roman' religious practices. Until recently, considerations of architectural form and named deities have dominated discussions. The wider turn in archaeological discourse recognising ritual in everyday contexts has highlighted the importance of lived experience and landscape practice in shaping belief. Here we reflect on the implications of such ideas when approaching ritual practice at Roman temples, using a recently excavated example from Wiltshire, southern Britain, as a case study. The exceptional artefactual assemblages from the site demonstrate the importance of local and regional landscape practices and belief in shaping ritual practice in a sacred space. In addition, geophysical survey and analysis of Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) finds suggests that those occupying the landscape had long-term access to wealth. Deposition in the temple itself indicates the continuing importance attached to prehistoric objects in the Roman period, but also to the adoption of new votive practices of miniaturisation, mutilation and sacrifice. These rituals, although part of wider grammars of religious behaviour, had their roots in specific local contexts. Our detailed analyses provide a picture of a temple dedicated to a previously unknown local god, Bregneus, framed against that of an active community involved in farming, iron processing, quarrying, hunting and woodland management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only five years ago, Montserrat was a blank spot on the distribution map of islands in the Lesser Antilles where petroglyphs were known. In January 2016, hikers in Soldier Ghaut, a deeply incised watercourse in the northwest of the island, came upon a panel of nine petroglyphs engraved on a nearly vertical wall of volcanoclastic tuff. Soon afterward the petroglyphs were documented by the Survey and Landscape Archaeology on Montserrat project (SLAM). Then in January 2018 an additional petroglyph was spotted on a large slab of rock, detached from the rock wall on the opposite side of the ghaut. At the invitation of the Montserrat National Trust (MNT) and with European Union funding, Susana Guimarães and Christian Stouvenot traveled to Montserrat in 2018 to assist in further studies at the site. They conducted photogrammetric documentation and photography under enhanced lighting conditions and inspected the petroglyphs and their context in detail in order to advise MNT about their conservation and provisions for public access. This report presents this new group of petroglyphs and their landscape setting and considers questions of dating and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over 450 precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields were documented across the state of Wisconsin. Today, the vast majority of these features are generally assumed to have been destroyed. Focusing on the Wisconsin River basin, which has the highest concentration of known archaeological field systems in the Midwest, this study explores the potential of using historical aerial photographs to identify and interpret archaeological agricultural features. Relying on state site records, an archive of high-resolution 1930s aerial images, and modern lidar data, we carefully examine the region surrounding 59 sites where fields had previously been documented. At a quarter of the sites we investigated, we successfully identified both known and unrecorded archaeological features--including agricultural fields, effigy mounds, earthworks, and house basins--most of which have been destroyed by recent land use practices. Our analysis sheds light on the complexity and richness of the archaeological landscape, with vast agricultural spaces situated beyond traditional site boundaries, and suggests that precolumbian and historic Indigenous agricultural fields may have been much larger and more widespread than conventionally understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologists have struggled to combine remotely sensed datasets with preexisting information for landscape-level analyses. In the American Southeast, for example, analyses of lidar data using automated feature extraction algorithms have led to the identification of over 40 potential new pre-European-contact Native American shell ring deposits in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Such datasets are vital for understanding settlement distributions, yet a comprehensive assessment requires remotely sensed and previously surveyed archaeological data. Here, we use legacy data and airborne lidar-derived information to conduct a series of point pattern analyses using spatial models that we designed to assess the factors that best explain the location of shell rings. The results reveal that ring deposit locations are highly clustered and best explained through a combination of environmental conditions such as distance to water and elevation as well as social factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The (re)occupation of hillforts was a distinctive feature of post-Roman Europe in the fifth to seventh centuries ad. In western and northern Britain, hillforts are interpreted as power centres associated with militarized elites, but research has paid less attention to their landscape context, hence we know little about the factors that influenced their siting and how this facilitated elite power. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide opportunities for landscape research, but are constrained by limitations of source data and the difficulty of defining appropriate parameters for analysis. This article presents a new methodology that combines data processing and analytical functions in GIS with techniques and principles drawn from 'traditional' landscape archaeology. A case study, focused on Dinas Powys, suggests that the strategic siting of this hillfort facilitated control over the landscape and has wider implications for our understanding of patterns of power in post-Roman Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taunton Stop Line was a defensive work built in the second half of 1940 to contain a possible German invasion of the south-west peninsula of Britain. The line ran across the 'waist of the South West' from the mouth of the river Parrett (in Somerset) to the mouth of the River Axe at Seaton (in Devon). This was a massive feat of construction involving both military and civilian personnel working under the threat of an imminent German invasion. Recently, some fifty contemporary sketches have come to light that were used to show the builders how to camouflage the individual pillboxes and emplacements. Discovering that many of these drawings were by well-known artists has led to an investigation of their role, an evaluation of their contribution to the camouflage, its effectiveness and limitations, and how this influenced subsequent army camouflage doctrine. They are believed to be the only such set of drawings to have survived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the Society of Antiquaries' Evolution of the Landscape project, which started in 1974, and the project's Sarsen Stones in Wessex survey. The survey was an ambitious public archaeology undertaking, involving c 100 volunteers led by Fellows of the Society during the 1970s. Its aims, objectives and outcomes are described in this article. The survey's unique dataset, produced for the counties of Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset, has now been digitised. Drawing on the dataset, the paper situates the Evolution of the Landscape project in the context of later twentieth-century British archaeology. It demonstrates the importance not only of individual Fellows, but also contemporary movements in academic and development-led archaeology, to the direction of the Society's activities in this formative period for the discipline today, and shows how the Society's research was engaged with some of archaeology's most pressing cultural resource management issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite imagery has long been recognized as well suited for the regional and ecological questions of many archaeological surveys. One underexplored aspect of such data is their temporal resolution. It is now possible for areas to be imaged on an almost daily basis, and this resolution offers new opportunities for studying landscapes through remote sensing in parallel with ground-based survey. This article explores the applications of these data for visibility assessment and land-cover change detection in the context of the Sinis Archaeological Project, a regional archaeological survey of west-central Sardinia. We employ imagery provided by Planet, which has a spatial resolution of 3 m, in four spectral bands, and is collected daily. Using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values calculated for each survey unit, we find that there is a relationship between NDVI values and field-reported visibility in general, though the strength of this correlation differs according to land-cover classes. We also find the data to be effective at tracking short-term changes in field conditions that allow us to differentiate fields of similar land cover and visibility. We consider limitations and potentials of these data and encourage further experimentation and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution explores a key dimension of the work of the Society for Libyan Studies concerning the archaeology of Libya's Protohistoric and early historic periods (broadly first millennium BC and first millennium AD). This primarily concerns the archaeology of rural landscapes (including the desert) and the investigation of the ancient Libyan populations that inhabited them. Taking an autobiographical approach, I review the contributions to developing research agendas made by a number of research projects that I have been involved in. The results collectively have advanced knowledge and understanding not only of this aspect of ancient Libyan society, but also have important implications for the construction of Libyan identity and the management of its heritage today. More broadly, they constitute an important contribution to wider re-evaluation of Maghribian and Saharan societies in the Iron Age and Roman periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to discuss the challenges and opportunities for integrating archaeological information in landscape-scale conservation design while aligning archaeological practice with design and planning focused on cultural resources. Targeting this opportunity begins with statewide archaeological databases. Here, we compare the structure and content of Pennsylvania's and Florida's statewide archaeological databases, identifying opportunities for leveraging these data in landscape conservation design and planning. The research discussed here was part of a broader project, which was working through the lens of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives in order to develop processes for integrating broadly conceived cultural resources with natural resources as part of multistate or regional landscape conservation design efforts. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives offer new ways to think about archaeological information in practice and potentially new ways for archaeology to contribute to design and planning. Statewide archaeological databases, in particular, offer transformative potential for integrating cultural resource priorities in landscape conservation design. Targeted coordination across state boundaries along with the development of accessible derivative databases are two priorities to advance their utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Structural violence" is a term used to describe inflicted systematic violence on a disenfranchised group by an established order, usually framed as a government or the social majority. The disenfranchised groups are marginalized and not provided with the same access to resources such as healthcare or food, the effects of which can be observed directly in their death. Bioarchaeologists often can detect the visible effects of this violence on skeletal remains, which provide a visual representation to and reinforcement of social prejudices inflicted in life and death. Discussed here is how the same concept of structural violence can be inflicted on the landscape through damage to or obliteration of cemeteries. We propose a definition of "landscape structural violence" exhibited through cemetery erasure as a reinforcement of preexisting social prejudices in death where the governments or the social majority, intentionally or passively, destroy, remove, or obscure a cemetery without consultation with the descendant community. This definition is applied to several examples of New Orleans cemeteries to determine the functionality of the definition and what activity is and what is not structural violence inflicted on the landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major challenge facing archaeologists is communicating our research to the public. Thankfully, new computational tools have enabled the testing and visualization of complex ideas in an easily packageable format. In this article we illustrate not only how agent-based modeling provides a platform for communicating complex ideas, but also how these game-like computer models can be explored and manipulated by members of the public therefore increasing their engagement in archaeological explanations. We suggest that these new digital tools serve as an excellent aid for education on the importance of archaeological sites and artifacts. To illustrate the above we walk the reader through a step-by-step pipeline of how to run an ABM model as an experiment and how to export it into a form ready to be sent to SHPO and THPO offices in tandem with reports. Ultimately, we hope that this work will help demystify the computational archaeology process and lead to more fluency in using agent-based modeling in research and outreach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual Reconstruction is a powerful tool broadly suited to a diverse array of archaeological heritage applications. In practice, however, reconstruction has largely focused on grand and monumental sites. Here we present two case studies–one from southern Oklahoma, the other from western Nebraska–to explore the use of this technology for more common heritage applications. The goal of this article is to advertise the dilemma we faced with communicating information on ephemeral sites and how we, as nonspecialists, solved the issue using affordable and accessible digital tools. Our workflow makes use of common tools (GIS) and open source software and online tutorials provide step by step instruction to support its replication. In presenting our experiences and the results of these efforts, we hope to spur similar applications in the use of Virtual Reconstruction to communicate information on archaeological heritage more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently declassified photographs taken by U2 spy planes in the 1950s and 1960s provide an important new source of historical aerial imagery useful for Eurasian archaeology. Like other sources of historical imagery, U2 photos provide a window into the past, before modern agriculture and development destroyed many archaeological sites. U2 imagery is older and in many cases higher resolution than CORONA spy satellite imagery, the other major source of historical imagery for Eurasia, and thus can expand the range of archaeological sites and features that can be studied from an aerial perspective. However, there are significant barriers to finding and retrieving U2 imagery of particular locales, and archaeologists have thus not yet widely used it. In this article, we aim to reduce these barriers by describing the U2 photo dataset and how to access it. We also provide the first spatial index of U2 photos for the Middle East. A brief discussion of archaeological case studies drawn from U2 imagery illustrates its merits and limitations. These case studies include investigations of prehistoric mass-kill hunting traps in eastern Jordan, irrigation systems of the first millennium BC Neo-Assyrian Empire in northern Iraq, and twentieth-century marsh communities in southern Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into the Iron Age of Anatolia has seldom paid sufficient attention to settlement patterns and the social organization of space. The Anabasis by Xenophon records the observations of a Greek outsider who travelled across eastern Anatolia and along the Black Sea coast in 400 bce , a time that was relatively early in the colonial process in this area. Xenophon's observations are used to establish a basic model for settlement in the Black Sea coastal region of Anatolia, which is then tested against the results of recent archaeological surveys and related research on the Sinop promontory. A fuller and richer model of indigenous Iron Age settlement and colonial engagement on the Sinop promontory is developed and considered in light of recent research on colonization in the western Mediterranean and northern Black Sea regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, research into Mesolithic landscapes has been heavily influenced by economic models of human activity where patterns of settlement and mobility result from the relationship between subsistence practices and the environment. However, in reconstructing these patterns we have tended to generalize both the modes of subsistence and the temporal and spatial variability of the environment, and ignored the role that cultural practices played in the way subsistence tasks were organized. While more recent research has emphasized the importance that cultural practices played in the way landscapes were perceived and understood, these have tended to underplay the role of subsistence and have continued to consider the environment in a very generalized manner. This paper argues that we can only develop detailed accounts of Mesolithic landscapes by looking at the specific forms of subsistence practice and the complex relationships they created with the environment. It will also show that the inhabitation of Mesolithic landscapes was structured around cultural attitudes to particular places and to the environment, and that this can be seen archaeologically through practices of deposition and recursive patterns of occupation at certain sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds upon two convergent trends in landscape archaeology: (1) investigations of symbolic meaning and (2) collaboration with descendant and stakeholder communities. The recent merger of these research agendas in the Southwest US provides an innovative approach to addressing meaning in the past. But the interpretations that result can inadvertently propagate notions of static and unchanging indigenous landscapes. Archaeologists can develop more dynamic studies of meaning and landscape by paying greater attention to the indexical properties of the archaeological record. To illustrate this point, I present a case study focused on ancestral Jemez (Pueblo) meanings associated with the Valles Caldera in northern New Mexico between AD 1300 and 1700. By combining contemporary Jemez understandings of this landscape with the indexical properties of obsidian revealed through pXRF analysis, this study illustrates how the uses of this landscape changed through time, particularly as a result of European colonization in the seventeenth century. It concludes that increased attention to the indexical properties of the archaeological record is critical for archaeological studies of meaning to reconstruct more robust and dynamic past landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For the first time, geomorphology and archaeology are combined for a 165 km long stretch of the Meuse river, resulting in a geomorphogenetic map (GKM) and a series of archaeological predictive maps (AVM). The maps cover the central part the Meuse valley, located in the province of Limburg between Mook in the north and Eijsden in the south. The area consists of fluvial and aeolian landforms of the Holocene Meuse floodplain and Younger Dryas aged terraces along it, spanning a period of approximately 15,000 years of landscape genesis and human habitation. The GKM more clearly discriminates between map units of Younger Dryas and early Holocene age than in previous mappings of the Meuse valley. The AVM series provide predictive information on the location of sites for four distinct consecutive archaeological periods and four main cultural themes. The maps contribute to a better understanding of landscape processes (fluvial and aeolian geomorphology and the impact of man on river behaviour), and the possibilities for human habitation and land use in prehistoric and historic times. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Numerous archaeological investigations have been performed along the river Meuse in the Netherlands’ southeastern province of Limburg as part of the major ‘Maaswerken’ infrastructural project. To improve flood risk management and navigability, and for the purpose of gravel production and nature development, several areas of land covering a total of almost 2000 ha are being excavated to a great depth. In anticipation of this, archaeological research was performed for the purposes of recording and documenting archaeological remains in the most important areas and locations. From 1998 to 2015 the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (Amersfoort) was in charge of the investigations, and acted as adviser to national public works agency Rijkswaterstaat.The archaeological research connected with the Maaswerken project differed from regular, site-based investigations in terms of the landscape archaeology perspective on which it was based. The research themes and principles associated with this perspective were published in several documents, including a scientific policy plan published in 2004, and presented in further detail in area programmes and project briefs. The policy plan assigned each project area to one of five value assessment categories, based on the intactness of the landscape and the archaeological potential for addressing the research questions. In areas of high landscape intactness and great archaeological potential (category 1) the Agency selected zones to be surveyed and assessed, and for archaeological excavation. Though most of the fieldwork, including specialist analysis, was performed in these zones, other category project areas have also been the subject of archaeological fieldwork, including borehole surveys, site-oriented research and watching briefs, but on a more incidental basis. Observations were also made in the river Meuse itself and in the river's winter bed.The archaeological investigations resulted in a large number of standard reports of desk studies and fieldwork, including reports of specialist analyses. A considerable proportion of these refer to the large-scale investigations at Borgharen and Itteren to the north of Maastricht, and at Lomm and Well–Aijen to the north of Venlo. The results of the investigations suggest the archaeological record here is rich and varied, with a time depth of c. 11,500 years, and traces of occupation and land use ranging from the Early Mesolithic (Well–Aijen, Borgharen) to the Second World War (Lomm).This paper reflects on almost 20 years of archaeological research in the project areas of the Maaswerken and on the principles and methods used in the field research. The common thread is the results of landscape and archaeological studies and the relationship between them. Examples are used to illustrate results that can be regarded as important from a national perspective, and in terms of archaeological heritage management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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This paper asks whether archaeologists might profitably re-engage with the pre-Enlightenment doctrines of elemental philosophy and humoral theory as paradigms more relevant for archaeological interpretation in certain contexts than much of current theoretical discourse. These ancient cosmologies are here reconceptualized to suggest ways in which archaeologists might provide fairer representations of past cultures, through the readoption of ideas that they understood rather than through the imposition of more recent and thus anachronistic frames of analytical reference. In four brief case studies, the paper seeks to show how the foregrounding of elemental and humoral theories might lead to new ways of thinking about the study and interpretation of the landscape, material culture, consumption and the senses. Through them, the paper looks to encourage reflection on whether elemental and humoral theories represent the intellectual paradigms that archaeologists have been striving to invent since the discipline's creation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Landscape archaeologies that pay attention to cultural importance of place have become increasingly common in recent years in many parts of the world. However, these approaches have largely failed to make inroads into Pleistocene European hunter-gatherer archaeology. This is partly due to a focus on economics, survival, and neo-liberal assumptions of 'efficiency' in early modern human behaviour. With evidence of lithic use drawn from cave sites, survey, and open-air excavation, I argue that Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers left clues to the importance of certain places in the landscape. Lithic tools in particular have been undervalued for their symbolic meaning, which goes well beyond style and ethnicity models. Raw material has been seen as evidence of mobility and trade, but possible cultural motives behind material choices have been downplayed or ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Precolumbian Central Mexico and the southern Andes, the Aztec and the Inca states created ritual landscapes that were based on observation of the natural environment and of celestial phenomena, but were also closely connected to cosmovision, defined as the structured view of nature and the universe in relation to man. By means of sophisticated architectural projects the landscape was transformed according to the canons of cosmological concepts, thus unifying time and space into a dialectical interacting whole. Simultaneously, the creation of these sanctuaries also expressed the exercise of power of these expanding states. I analyse several examples of the ritual landscapes created by the Aztecs in the Central Highlands and the Basin of Mexico, that are confronted with examples from the Incas in their immediate domain of influence around their capital, Cuzco. The comparative study of Aztecs and Incas may contribute to a broader understanding of Native American societies and landscape archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]