Archaeologies of Landscape

Archaeologists have long given attention to landscape, especially within settlement archaeology. In recent years, however, the focus on landscape has shifted and what was once generally passive background has now assumed the foreground. This results partly from archaeologists expanding their view beyond individual sites to considering a more comprehensive distribution of human traces in and especially between specific “places of special interest”. This book offers new and diverse perspectives on the ideational qualities of past landscapes. The editors introduce several theoretical sources supporting studies of ideational landscapes and, in so doing, give definitions of key categories of landscape, as constructed, conceived, and ideational. The contributors draw on the wide range of literature on these kinds of landscape, numerous case studies and their own theoretical background and experience to provide a thematic examination of the archaeologies of landscape.

Author Biography

Wendy Ashmore is a professor of Maya archaeology at the University of California, Riverside. She has been involved in excavations in Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. Her research focuses on the implications that spaces, settlement patterns, and gender can have on social organization. A. Bernard Knapp is the editor of Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives, published by Wiley.