Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 19 (2018) 791–793

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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep

Geography on a human scale: Global case studies exploring landscape T

archaeology

A common thread in global archaeological studies is that landscape-level environmental variation and resource distribution influenced pre-
historic groups' social and economic activities. Furthermore, climatic fluctuations and ensuing local environmental changes affected regional human
adaptations. Both mobile and sedentary populations were (and are today) equally susceptible to landscape patchworks, which influenced how groups
acquired and used spatially limited resources. However, “landscape” is a challenging unit for archaeologists. Are landscapes geographically bounded,
delineated by watercourses, recognized by flora and fauna, built around toolstone outcrops, or focused on natural spaces like caves, mountains, or
basins? Or, are landscapes territorial units, socially bounded by groups with similar economies, spatial identities, subsistence practices, ideologies,
and networks? If landscapes encompass all of these variables, how can archaeologists, often specialists in single artifact genres or analytic methods,
manage the unit's immense variability in their behavioral reconstructions? Landscapes beg interdisciplinary research that incorporates varied
methodologies, assessing each of these dimensions, and, more importantly, how they may have interacted.
Landscapes are one of the most widely studied areas of archaeological research, with studies occurring in all times and places (e.g. Ashmore,
2004; Blades and Adams, 2009; Bloxam, 2009; Knapp and Ashmore, 1999; Liebmann, 2017; Smith, 2003; Thomas, 2001; Wenban-Smith, 2004;
Wesson, 1998). In this special issue we take a broad definition of landscapes as the spaces and environments in which people live and interact. We
define landscape broadly to highlight the diverse topics under the landscape archaeology umbrella. Within each of the individual papers in this
special issue, authors define the level of landscape they address and the particular theoretical and methodological framework they use to assess
human-landscape interactions.
This special issue explores the interplay between prehistoric human groups and landscape-level resources (whether geographic, comestible, or
social) through a series of global case studies focused on two themes: (1) how landscape variability impacts human settlement, mobility, and
resource use; and (2) how human-landscape interactions impact the landscape and the ways people relate to and envision their surroundings. These
case studies incorporate broad archaeological methods, including lithic analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), documentary studies, and
isotopic chemistry, among other methodologies. Overall, the case studies examine landscapes as diverse entities, investigating how resources in-
fluenced past behavioral systems in both mobile and sedentary societies and demonstrating methods that archaeologists can use to approach
landscape studies worldwide.
The temporal and geographic coverage of this special issue highlights the variability and importance of landscape studies. This issue includes
papers spanning the depth of prehistory, including: the Paleolithic period (Fontes et al., 2018; Ortega Martínez and Ruiz-Redondo, 2018); the
Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene (TP/EH) (Chala-Aldana et al., 2018; Newlander, 2018; Smith and Harvey, 2018); the Neolithic (Parkinson
et al., 2018; Storozum et al., 2018); the Bronze Age (Quinn and Cuigudean, 2018); and the Medieval period (Goodale et al., 2018). This temporal
breadth demonstrates the ways landscape studies can be used to address topics of interest to archaeologists regardless of time period.
Geographically, this special issue includes papers spanning across five continents: Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. The
geographic breadth presented in this issue highlights the diverse, mutualistic ways that humans affect landscapes and in turn how landscapes affect
humans. Even within similar geographic regions, papers in this collection take different tacks to address similar issues. For example, studies by
Fontes et al. (2018) and Ortega Martínez and Ruiz-Redondo (2018) offer two different ways of addressing Magdalenian settlement patterns in the
Cantabrian region of Spain. Garvey and Bettinger (2018) and Chala-Aldana et al. (2018) offer distinct discussions of the occupation of high altitude
regions of the Andes in the Middle Holocene and TP/EH, respectively. Conversely, papers addressing widely different geographic areas, such as
Transylvania (Quinn and Ciugudean, 2018) and the lowland Maya region of Mesoamerica (Horowitz, 2018), address a similar thematic issue—the
impact resource distribution had on sedentary populations' economic activities. These papers highlight how adaptable landscape approaches are to
interpretation of the archaeological record.
Papers in this collection also examine how landscape studies can expand beyond land itself. Seascapes played an important role both in the
maintenance of interactions between residents of islands off the coast of Ireland during the Medieval period (Goodale et al., 2018). Humans' use of
waterways highlights these features' importance in maintaining social and cultural connections among disparate groups.
Perhaps the greatest strength of this collection of papers is its methodological diversity. Several papers take more traditional approaches to
examining human landscape use: Newlander (2018) and Smith and Harvey (2018) use lithic analysis to discuss mobility patterns; Howey and Clark
(2018) and Quinn and Ciugudean (2018) evaluate landscape attractiveness to groups of individuals; Ortega and Ruiz discuss the symbolic im-
portance of landscapes; and Parkinson et al. (2018) and Storozum et al. (2018) use geophysics and micromorphology to examine human

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.02.022
Received 5 February 2018; Accepted 17 February 2018
Available online 25 February 2018
2352-409X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 19 (2018) 791–793

modifications to landscapes and the implications these changes have for future settlements. However, those authors that employ traditional methods
approach the results of these landscape studies from new perspectives. For example, Newlander (2018) employs lithic sourcing and source dis-
tributions to understand hunter-gatherer mobility. However, he integrates new theory into his interpretations and suggests that Paleoindian cultural
landscapes and social networks may have been responsible for the geographic distribution of obsidian artifacts.
Authors also employ non-traditional methods to understand landscapes. VanEssendelft (2018) takes a linguistic approach to Aztec under-
standings of landscapes, using the study of toponyms, or place names, to suggest that the Aztec emphasized ecological features when naming places,
such as mountains and streams, because these features were prominent in their initial settlement of the Basin of Mexico. Primeau and Witt (2018)
model soundscapes using GIS to analyze the distribution of settlement at Chaco Canyon, located in the U.S. Southwest, and the role acoustics may
have played in building features and performance spaces.
Landscape studies in archaeology have been greatly altered by the predominance of GIS studies. In this issue, five articles employ GIS to examine
landscape use (Howey and Clark, 2018; Marwick et al., 2018; Ortega Martínez and Ruiz-Redondo, 2018; Primeau and Witt, 2018; and Quinn and
Ciugudean, 2018). Howey and Clark (2018) use ecological models to look at landscape heterogeneity and where monuments were placed. Marwick
et al. (2018) use GIS to examine the effect of geologic boundaries on hunter-gatherer behavior. They also provide a useful guide to the use of
handheld GIS units while conducting survey, a methodological note of use to many archaeologists. Ortega Martínez and Ruiz-Redondo (2018) use
GIS to model the symbolic importance of landscapes to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, suggesting that we can use viewsheds to help explain the
placement of some sites on the landscape during this period. These diverse ways of using GIS technology expand its utility in landscape studies,
allowing archaeologists to diversify their foci beyond settlement and routes taken, to examine peoples' preferences for different types of landscapes
and the influence symbolic and economic activities may have had on these preferences.
Isotope studies are also increasing the ways in which archaeologists can examine past landscape use. Two papers in this collection examine
landscapes through the lens of isotopes. Chala-Aldana et al. (2018) use strontium and oxygen isotopes to model mobility patterns in the TP/EH of the
Andes by looking at where people consumed food and water. Similarly, Sparks and Crowley (this issue) study resource procurement through isotopic
studies of faunal remains in Trinidad. These studies show the importance of integrating scientific analyses of archaeological remains into landscape
studies, providing new avenues to address issues archaeologists have explored for many years, but in regions where it may have been previously
impossible or difficult to do so.
The papers in this special issue address landscape use among both mobile and sedentary groups of people. While both mobile and sedentary
populations were equally susceptible to landscape patchworks, which influenced how groups acquired and used spatially limited resources, land-
scape studies are more common in examinations of hunter-gatherer groups as the ways in which they moved around the landscape and interacted
with landscape–level resources are central to understandings of their lifeways. Studies of landscapes in sedentary societies have received less study,
and frequently focus on the experiential life-ways of sedentary peoples, or landscapes of meaning (see Ashmore, 2004; Liebmann, 2017). While these
approaches are meaningful, other aspects of landscapes would have also affected prehistoric sedentary groups.
Quinn and Ciugudean (2018) and Horowitz (2018) address the economic impact of resource distributions on sedentary societies. Quinn and
Ciugudean examine how Bronze Age individuals chose their site locations, stressing that social connections, rather than raw material resources, were
the key to resource choices. Horowitz examines the uneven distribution of lithic resources among the lowland Maya to address the role of lithic
production in economic activities for individuals of differing socio-political statuses. Studies of the built environment also feature in landscape
studies of sedentary societies, as addressed here by papers about Neolithic tells in Hungary (Parkinson et al., 2018) and Neolithic to Iron Age
agricultural settlements in China (Storozum et al., 2018). Parkinson et al. (2018) examination of the formation of settlements over time and
Storozum et al. (2018) examinations of soil formation address the ways in which humans modify the environment and the ways in which these
modifications impact the environment. Similarly, Howey and Clark (2018) examine the ways in which preexisting landforms impact the positioning
of monumental earthworks in the Great Lakes region of North America. They find that earthworks are positioned in areas with landform abundance,
suggesting that the builders of these earthworks possessed knowledge of the local landscape.
Studies in this collection that focus on hunter-gatherer mobility also diverge from traditional studies of these topics, both methodologically and
theoretically. For example, Fontes et al. (2018) address mobility and resource acquisition in Magdalenian Spain by looking at lithic materials from
fine grained analytic units to provide better points of comparison for understanding lithic provisioning on multiple geographic scales that may have
represented social networks. Similarly, Garvey and Bettinger (2018) use geochemical analyses and obsidian hydration dating to explore the set-
tlement and mobility of people in Mendoza, Argentina, suggesting that people were occupying this region during the relatively dry periods of the
Holocene, a period when previous research suggested the region was unoccupied. Smith and Harvey (2018) provide a cautionary tale for the use of
mobility and sourcing in the Great Basin, as they attempt to modify lithic conveyance zones in the region through additional sourcing, suggesting
that we should keep in mind that as we source more materials, the likelihood of having rare or unusual sources in a region will increase.
This brief overview of papers provides a glimpse at the breadth and depth of analyses and approaches to landscapes presented in this issue. This
issue provides a holistic examination of the interactions between humans and their environments: how landscape variability impacts human set-
tlement, mobility, and resource use; how human-landscape interactions impact the landscape itself; and the ways people relate to and envision their
surroundings.
One of the advantages and strengths of landscape archaeology studies is their ability to bring scholars with expertise in diverse subsets of
archaeology together to address broad themes that interest anthropological archaeologists. As the authors in this issue illustrate, landscape ar-
chaeology is both geographically and temporally expansive. Landscape studies address similar themes, including human impacts on the environment
and environmental variability's influence on human settlement, mobility, economic activities, and socio-cultural networks. This issue's authors also
illustrate that diverse methodologies provide a holistic view into past human-landscape interactions.
This special issue brings to the fore a diverse group of papers addressing cutting-edge research that examines human-landscape relationships.
Their geographical, temporal, and methodological diversity provide a resource for scholars venturing into landscape studies. Landscape archaeology
is just one way that archaeologists can integrate their diverse material, methodological, and interpretive approaches to the past; it is an important
avenue that archaeologists can use to exchange ideas about human lifeways, regardless of time and space.

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⁎
Rachel A. Horowitza, , Lisa M. Fontesb
a
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, United States
b
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, and Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS, Phoenix, AZ, United States
E-mail address: rhorowit@tulane.edu

⁎
Corresponding author.

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