Defining a contemporary landscape approach: concluding thoughts.

Defining a contemporary landscape approach: concluding thoughts. In the above papers, two of the participants begin by quoting thecultural geographer Carl Sauer. From my perspective, the recognitiongiven to Sauer by DUNNING and his colleagues as well as GARTNER istimely and important, since it reminds us that the long-term interplaybetween humans and their environments has long been a central concern ingeography as well as archaeology. My comments here endeavour to reflectupon and address that general theme towards framing a coherent landscapeapproach in archaeology. In so doing, space does not also allow for adetailed commentary on each of the articles that compose this section. For my own principal study region (Oaxaca, Mexico), 29 years havepassed since Ronald Spores' (1969) seminal publication in which heoutlined the prehispanic construction of lama-bordo agricultural systemsin the Mixteca Alta in the Oaxaca highlands. The use of the lama-bordosrequired intentional stimulation of erosion. Stone and rubble dikes wereconstructed and designed to trap water and eroding soils as theydescended the natural drainage channels that extended from mountains tothe valley floor during heavy summer rains. These stone dikes were i to4 m high and could be tens (even hundreds) of metres long. Followingseveral years of runoff, the lama-bordo terrace systems accumulatedsufficient soil to form level and rather fertile plots that returnedsignificant yields. Spores also noted that the lamabordo systems appearto have remained productive during the later part of the prehispanicsequence, as long as the terrace walls were kept in place and carefullymaintained. However, with post-contact demographic collapse and changesin tribute patterns, work and land-use patterns were disrupted. Thecontinual labour necessary to rebuild and maintain these agrarian features was lost and massive unchecked erosionprecipitated, which was hastened by grazing and the intentional removalof the natural vegetation. The heavy erosion that today still scars theNochixtlan Valley and other parts of the Mixteca Alta was theconsequence. In many senses, Spores' (1969) classic article foreshadowsdirectly the convincing analyses of parallel findings presented here byERICKSON for Bolivia and FISHER for Patzcuaro. In both cases, the mostserious landscape upheavals occurred with population decrease andpolitical decline rather than with demographic growth. But remembrancesof the studies of Sauer and Spores also raise other more challengingissues. For example, what exactly is meant by a landscape approach?What, if anything, do the diverse set of papers in this collection sharetheoretically? What have we learned since the prescient pre��scient?adj.1. Of or relating to prescience.2. Possessing prescience.[French, from Old French, from Latin praesci works of Sporesand Sauer? Let me endeavour to begin a dialogue by addressing my ownrhetorical questions. One thing that clearly has changed over the lastthree decades is the suite of methods and techniques that we can employto examine a dynamic environment. These procedures include AMS AMS - Andrew Message System datingand a wide array of sediment analyses, as well as othergeoarchaeological techniques that were not available to Saner or Spores.These methods allow for the evaluation of environmental evidence at alevel of detail and precision that was unavailable to earlier scholars.Yet these innovations are present in only some of the above papers. Inand of themselves, these new methods and procedures (no matter howsignificant they may be) do not alone define a new landscape approach.Nevertheless, as we see in several of the articles, the application ofthese new methods and procedures for analysing the environment canprovide important new data for archaeology when they are explicitlymarshalled to address anthropological questions. Perhaps more significantly, the majority of the studies in thiscollection appear to represent a theoretical response and challenge tothe catastrophic and environmental deterministic thinking that hasendured in the archaeological literature for at least a century (e.g.Kolata 1996). In defining a landscape approach, the authors for thiscollection seem to recognize that consideration and analysis of theenvironment is critically important for understanding human society andculture. But they also realize that most environments are neitherpristine nor independent entities unaffected by past human action(Denevan 1992; Dunning et al. 1999; Thurston 1999). Most of the papersin this symposium seem to share a more dynamic perspective onhuman-environmental relations, one that views human landscapes as also,in part, human constructions. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , when it comes tohuman-environmental relations, history matters and so does culture (withapologies to Gould 1986). If we can use the work in this special section as a guide, threetenets appear to be central for the landscape approach: 1 a dedicated effort to examine the physical environment, oftenusing a diverse suite of natural science techniques, but with explicitsocial scientific questions guiding the research; 2 the recognition that human-environment interactions, arehistorically contingent, dynamic and accretionary, shaped by distinctcultural perceptions and past human actions; and 3 the realization that human environments are in themselves partlyproducts or constructions of a dynamic interaction with human behaviour. Advocates of a landscape approach consequently resist the oft-heldnotion that human behaviour is simply governed or determined by anindependent 'natural' or physical environment. In all of theseunderlying tenets, the landscape approach productively builds on earliertheoretical currents and investigatory directions in human ecology Human ecologyThe study of how the distributions and numbers of humans are determined by interactions with conspecific individuals, with members of other species, and with the abiotic environment. (e.g.Vayda and McCay 1975) and settlement archaeology (e.g. Feinman &Nicholas 1990). In closing, I wish to hazard at risk; liable to suffer damage or loss.See also: Hazard a final opinion that perhaps will seemmore controversial for the authors in this collection. My suspicion isthat if we want to push simplistic sim��plism?n.The tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications.[French simplisme, from simple, simple, from Old French; see simple environmental determinism andcatastrophic explanations of human landscape change off theanthropological agenda once and for all, then we will have to addressthe adherents of these views in paradigmatic See paradigm. terms that they themselvesunderstand and will have to take seriously. That is, we must address thestudy of landscapes with systematically collected data, carefulevaluations of alternative explanations, and amassed evidence. I believethat if we do so, as we have witnessed in the majority of the paperspresented in this collection, then the overwhelming weight of evidencewill be on our side and there will be further opportunities to movedisciplinary consensus in our direction. I suspect that if we adhere to adhere toverb 1. follow, keep, maintain, respect, observe, be true, fulfil, obey, heed, keep to, abide by, be loyal, mind, be constant, be faithful2. the more narrative and conjectural con��jec��tur��al?adj.1. Based on or involving conjecture. See Synonyms at supposed.2. Tending to conjecture.con��jec investigations that sometimes fallunder the rubric RUBRIC, civil law. The title or inscription of any law or statute, because the copyists formerly drew and painted the title of laws and statutes rubro colore, in red letters. Ayl. Pand. B. 1, t. 8; Diet. do Juris. h.t. of landscape approaches, the positions advanced willnot be entirely convincing to the specific deterministic scholars thatwe want to debate and persuade. Perhaps in defining an overarchinglandscape approach, this also is a consideration that should receivecareful attention. References DENEVAN, W.M. 1992. The pristine myth: the landscape of theAmericas in 1492, Annals of the American Association of Geographers 82:369-85. DUNNING, N., V. SCARBOROUGH, F. VALDEZ, JR, S. LUZZADDER-BEACH, T.BEACH & J.G. JONES. 1999. Temple mountains, sacred lakes, andfertile fields: ancient Maya landscapes in northwestern Belize,Antiquity 73: 650-60. FEINMAN, G.M. & L.M. NICHOLAS. 1990. Settlement and land use inancient Oaxaca, in J, Marcus (ed.), Debating Oaxaca archaeology: 71-113.Ann Arbor (MI): Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. .Anthropological Papers 84. GOULD, S.J. 1986. Evolution and the triumph of homology homology(hōmŏl`əjē), in biology, the correspondence between structures of different species that is attributable to their evolutionary descent from a common ancestor. , or Whyhistory matters, American Scientist 74: 60-69. KOLATA, A.L. (ed.). 1996. Tiwanaku and its hinterland: archaeologyand paleoecology pa��le��o��e��col��o��gyn.The branch of ecology that deals with the interaction between ancient organisms and their environment. of an Andean civilization. Washington (DC): SmithsonianInstitution Press. SPORES, R. 1969. Settlement, farming technology, and environment inthe Nochixtlan Valley, Science 166: 557-69. THURSTON, T. 1999. The knowable, the doable and the undiscussed:tradition, submission and the 'becoming' of rural landscapesin Denmark's Iron Age, Antiquity 73: 660-70. VAYDA, A.P. & B.J. MCCAY. 1975. New directions in ecology andecological anthropology, Annual Review of Anthropology 4: 293-306.