From the International Association of Landscape Archaeology:
ABSTRACT
Landscapes are unique archives of human fingerprints and environmental processes. A long tradition of archaeological research has elucidated key developments of human landscapes, from the longevity of agricultural expansion in temperate regions to creative responses to serendipitous climate extremes in the Mediterranean basin, to mention but two important examples. As landscape archaeology deepens and widens knowledge of the past, so do the challenges of disentangling the complexities of the human-environment nexus: socio-ecological processes, actors, and impacts operate at multiple spatial and temporal scales; the importance of baseline and reference datasets to characterize natural versus anthropogenic conditions, processes, and outputs. Furthermore, most of the theories and practices of landscape archaeology have developed in and for temperate environments, making their applications to other biogeographic settings not straightforward. Methodological advances in the extraction and study of multiple proxies, from organic and inorganic sources to remotely sensed records and nano-scale markers, are expanding resolution and detail at an unprecedented level. However, these advances also introduce new challenges: which methods to integrate to investigate what and where. Recent applications combining geomorphological, geophysical, bio-geo- archaeological analyses have proven robust and effective in examining archives and deciphering landscapes’ evolution under human influence. To push research, we call for contributions that illustrate the potentials, challenges, and frontiers of multi-proxy methods and multi-scalar analysis in profiling human landscapes throughout time. Looking at landscapes as archives, specific topics to be addressed include (1) Baseline and reference data; (2) Context versus scale; and (3) Trends versus anomalies.
