ABSTRACT

This paper explores Landscape Archaeology's location within the broader interdisciplinary field of landscape research beyond archaeology. A variety of factors are already creating a widening field of landscape research, including the increasingly integrative role of the concept of landscape as promoted, for example, by the European Landscape Convention, a growing questioning (within more general trends in society towards holistic thinking) of the traditional divides between disciplines, and the scale of social and environmental problems perceived to be confronting the world which require comprehensive views such as landscape offers. There are similar trends in heritage management concerned with the social role and value of heritage (the Faro Convention), the distinction (or lack of) between the present and the past, and the social relevance of archaeological work.

It will be argued that, by presenting the continuum of (pre)history (as represented by past material culture) as a part of present-day landscape not merely as a pointer to understanding past environments or landscapes, Landscape Archaeology could become an important part of broader landscape research in addition to being a sub-discipline of archaeology. Landscape archaeology can bring special and unique expertise to landscape studies, and can in its turn benefit from exposure to the different horizons, theories and aims of other landscape disciplines. Working more closely with other landscape disciplines and practices studies would also help landscape archaeology to develop greater social relevance through the unifying framework of landscape.

KEYWORDS

interdisciplinary studies, perception, landscape research, social relevance, European Landscape Convention

INTRODUCTION

The organisation of a first international conference devoted exclusively to ‘landscape archaeology’ implied a coming of age for a discipline which (although its many sub-types vary in age, with some countries having longer traditions than others) is nevertheless mainly relatively young. The conference could not represent every part of Landscape Archaeology's broad scope, and there have been substantial sessions devoted to Landscape Archaeology at other international conferences, notably EAA and WAC. In its special focus, aspiration and consciousness, however, LAC2010 represented an important milestone and it is to be hoped that it will become as established in future years as, for instance, pecsrl, Ruralia, EAA or CAA already are.