A1: Living in a Landscape – How to incorporate the short-term in landscape archaeology

Organisers: Maurits W. Ertsen, Dan E. Lawrence

Just as the actions of ants building a nest affect their environment, actions of humans have co-shaped their environment in relation to that same environment. Humans change almost everything in the landscapes surrounding them, through processes analyzed as (Human) Niche Construction, Evolutionary History, Socio-Ecological Systems, et cetera. The environment changed by organisms changes those same organisms; selective pressures from an environment have an influence on survival strategies of those living within that environment. What these approaches have in common is their focus on (the results of) human-environment interactions emerging over long periods of time. Longer term trends, however, are created by series of short-term, small-scale interactions between people, institutions, technologies and the environment. Here we see commonalities with a Latourian perspective on environmental change and management, especially aspects of Actor-Network-Theory which argue that the human-nature divide is theoretically flawed. This session aims to bring together case studies, theoretical principles, methodological implications, and consequences for research agendas in landscape archaeology related to the realization that the short term creates the long term instead of the other way around. Emphasis will be placed on the inseparability of the natural and human worlds and its consequences for landscape archaeology. The session hopes to assess the new insights, as well as the pitfalls, such an approach can bring to our understanding of how networks of people and material conditions shape their landscapes.

Contact: Maurits W. Ertsen          M.W.Ertsen@tudelft.nl

List of Speakers

Arnald Puy (Maritime Civilizations Department, University of Haifa): Andrea L. Balbo, Camilla Zinsli, & Morten Ramstad: Increasing the Resolution of Scandinavian Anthropic Deposits: The Potential of XRF Core Scanning and Geoarchaeology

Maurits W. Ertsen (Water Resources, Delft University of Technology), Nothing but Shapes and Variations. The Material in Actor Network Theory

Morgan J. Schmidt (Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi): Building Human Landscapes: Daily Activities and Environmental Transformations in Ancient Amazonian Settlements

Ragnhildur Sigurdardottir (Reykjavik Academy, Reykjavik), Astrid Ogilvie, Vidar Hreinsson, Arni Daniel Juliusson, Megan Hicks, Andrew Dugmore, Anthony Newton, Ian Simpson, Arni Einarsson, Orri Vesteinsson, Steven Hartman, Richard Streeter, Mike Church, Ian Lawson, Adolf Fridriksson, George Hambrecht, Carole Crumley, Thomas McGovern (City University of New York): Sex Slaves and Troll Wives: an Interdisciplinary Study

Carly Monks (University of Western Australia) & Joe Dortch: Archaeological Evidence for Management of Landscapes in Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Simonetta Menchelli (University of Pisa, Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere); Eleonora Iacopini: Living in a Landscape which is being Romanized

Sjoerd Kluiving (Dept. of Archaeology, VU University Amsterdam): Is the Tipping Point from Inceptive to Counteractive Changes in Niche Construction Theory to be Defined by Archaeological Data and Will it Contribute to the Anthropocene Discussion?

Wiebke Bebermeier (Institute of Geographical Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin), Michael Thelemann, Philipp Hoelzmann, Enrico Lehnhardt, Michael Meyer & Brigitta Schütt: Coupling On-site and Off-site Landscape Archaeological Approaches in Tracing the Short-term in Landscape Archaeology – A Case Study on Early Iron Smelting in Silesia, Poland

Marc De Bie, Erwin Meylemans & Jan Bastiaens: When and how did prehistoric daily practice start to affect landscapes? Case study from a sandscape in Flanders, Belgium

List of Posters

Jacques Verstraeten (Association Pays Mosan asbl), Olivier Collette & Virginie Boulez: La Paix Dieu, a Cistercian Abbey in the Meuse Region. Geographical, Archaeological and Historical Approaches of a Medieval Occupation and its Impact in the Present Regional Landscape

Dita Auzina (University of Latvia) & Bernt Rundberget: The Landscape of Iron Production - from Prehistory to the Early Modern Period in Present-day Latvia