Landscape Archaeology - Analysis of Landscapes

Analysis of Landscapes

Many methods used to analyze archaeological sites are relevant to the analysis of landscapes. The archaeology of landscapes incorporates multiple research methods into its analysis in order to ensure that multiple sources of information are gathered; allowing for a sound interpretation of the site in question. These methods include pollen analysis, Geographic Information Systems, soil sampling, faunal analysis, ground penetrating radar, archival data (including maps and census data), and of course archaeological excavation methods. Pollen, soil, faunal, and floral analysis allows the archaeologist to understand the natural vegetation of an area, vegetation that was actively grown by area settlers, and the animal life that also lived in the area. An understanding of the plant and animal life specific to an area can lead to, for example, an analysis of the types of food available to members of the community, an understanding of the actual diet typical for a subset of a population, and site and skeletal dating. If landscape reconstruction and preservation, in particular, is a goal of an archaeological research project, pollen and soil analysis can aide in landscape archaeology to accurately interpret and reconstruct landscapes of the past (Schoenwetter pg 278).

Advances in survey technology have permitted the rapid and accurate analysis of wide areas, making the process an efficient way of learning more about the historic environment. Global Positioning System, remote sensing, archaeological geophysics, Total stations and digital photography, as well as Gis, have helped reduce the time and cost involved in such work.

• Geographic Information Systems

Geographic Information Systems, commonly referred to as GIS, provides a way in which archaeologists can visually represent archaeological data, and can be done in two ways: data visualization and representative visualization.

Viewshed Analysis has aided in the archaeologists ability to study behavioral relationships between humans, their landscape, and material culture, in order to study migration, settlement patterns, and agency. Viewshed analysis also provides means with which archaeologists can recreate through an ability to recreate the line of sights possible from one point on a landscape and to situate a person within a defined landscape.

• Ground Penetrating Radar

• Global Positioning System

• Remote Sensing

• Archaeological Geophysics

• Total Station

• Excavation

Site excavation has the potential to uncover building methods, such as the findings of postholes (which can mark the previous existence of fence lines or other site boundaries), timber, stones, and/or brick that marks the existence of man-made structures.

Archaeological features often leave earthworks - signs of some type of modification to the natural environment that often appear as cropmarks, soil marks, or even as plough marks in fields that, if historical, can indicate cultivation methods of the past, or, particularly if more recent, can lift archaeological material to the surface and, therefore, ruin the stratigraphic layering of materials from youngest to oldest). Features can be discovered by archaeologists both through excavation and through field survey.

• Archival Data is used by any archaeologists that have any written texts available to them, and is used in a multiple number of ways, depending on the research project and objective of the research and the data available in the archives. Archives are often employed to confirm archaeological findings, to understand the construction of a site, settlement patterns,.

• Pollen Analysis

Pollen analysis has allowed archaeologists to analyze vegetation selectively cultivated by area residents, the “native vegetation” of a particular area, and allow archaeologists to map out land use over time (which can be ascertained from weeds). But collecting a suitable sample is not all that easy. Failure to collect a suitable sample can be due in part to not sampling from areas where suitable pollen samples can be gathered (e.g. lakes and bogs, sites that were sufficiently exposed to air-borne pollen, sites that had both a long exposure to air and are deeply buried into the ground), or because pollen is vulnerable to destruction by the oxidation process or soil microbes such as bacteria and fungi, it negatively impacts an archaeologist’s ability to collect a suitable pollen sample.

Gerald K. Kelso and Mary C. Beaudry demonstrate how “…changes in the complex mosaic of microenvironments in metropolitan situations are sensitively recorded in the pollen contributions of weedy taxa”. Arboreal pollen indicates regional vegetation, while non-arboreal indicates local vegetation. Both arboreal and non-arboreal pollen can be gathered and used in archaeological studies to support documentary and archaeological evidence of changes in land use—initial settlement, resettlement of area by other groups, and decline and abandonment of area—for example non-arboreal pollen can indicate the replacement of vegetation native to a region within the United States by vegetation native to places in Europe, or to the clearance of large areas that would be expected to make way for cities and towns.

• Soil Sampling

• Faunal Analysis

• Bioarchaeology

• Floral Analysis