Landscape in the Longue Durée

Landscape in the Longue Durée
Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2017-10-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1787350827

Pebbles are usually found only on the beach, in the liminal space between land and sea. But what happens when pebbles extend inland and create a ridge brushing against the sky? Landscape in the Longue Durée is a 4,000 year history of pebbles. It is based on the results of a four-year archaeological research project of the east Devon Pebblebed heathlands, a fascinating and geologically unique landscape in the UK whose bedrock is composed entirely of water-rounded pebbles. Christopher Tilley uses this landscape to argue that pebbles are like no other kind of stone – they occupy an especial place both in the prehistoric past and in our contemporary culture. It is for this reason that we must re-think continuity and change in a radically new way by considering embodied relations between people and things over the long term. Dividing the book into two parts, Tilley first explores the prehistoric landscape from the Mesolithic to the end of the Iron Age, and follows with an analysis of the same landscape from the eighteenth into the twenty-first century. The major findings of the four-year study are revealed through this chronological journey: from archaeological discoveries, such as the excavation of three early Bronze Age cairns, to the documentation of all 829 surviving pebble structures, and beyond, to the impact of the landscape on local economies and its importance today as a military training camp. The results of the study will inform many disciplines including archaeology, cultural and art history, anthropology, conservation, and landscape studies.

Landscape in the Longue Durée

Landscape in the Longue Durée
Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2017-10-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1787350835

Pebbles are usually found only on the beach, in the liminal space between land and sea. But what happens when pebbles extend inland and create a ridge brushing against the sky? Landscape in the Longue Durée is a 4,000 year history of pebbles. It is based on the results of a four-year archaeological research project of the east Devon Pebblebed heathlands, a fascinating and geologically unique landscape in the UK whose bedrock is composed entirely of water-rounded pebbles. Christopher Tilley uses this landscape to argue that pebbles are like no other kind of stone – they occupy an especial place both in the prehistoric past and in our contemporary culture. It is for this reason that we must re-think continuity and change in a radically new way by considering embodied relations between people and things over the long term. Dividing the book into two parts, Tilley first explores the prehistoric landscape from the Mesolithic to the end of the Iron Age, and follows with an analysis of the same landscape from the eighteenth into the twenty-first century. The major findings of the four-year study are revealed through this chronological journey: from archaeological discoveries, such as the excavation of three early Bronze Age cairns, to the documentation of all 829 surviving pebble structures, and beyond, to the impact of the landscape on local economies and its importance today as a military training camp. The results of the study will inform many disciplines including archaeology, cultural and art history, anthropology, conservation, and landscape studies.

Reluctant Landscapes

Reluctant Landscapes
Author: Francois G. Richard
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2018-09-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022625254X

West African history is inseparable from the history of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. According to historical archaeologist François Richard, however, the dominance of this narrative not only colors the range of political discourse about Africa but also occludes many lesser-known—but equally important—experiences of those living in the region. Reluctant Landscapes is an exploration of the making and remaking of political experience and physical landscapes among rural communities in the Siin province of Senegal between the late 1500s and the onset of World War II. By recovering the histories of farmers and commoners who made up African states’ demographic core in this period, Richard shows their crucial—but often overlooked—role in the making of Siin history. The book also delves into the fraught relation between the Seereer, a minority ethnic and religious group, and the Senegalese nation-state, with Siin’s perceived “primitive” conservatism standing at odds with the country’s Islamic modernity. Through a deep engagement with oral, documentary, archaeological, and ethnographic archives, Richard’s groundbreaking study revisits the four-hundred-year history of a rural community shunted to the margins of Senegal’s national imagination.

Anthropology of Landscape

Anthropology of Landscape
Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2017-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1911307436

An Anthropology of Landscape tells the fascinating story of a heathland landscape in south-west England and the way different individuals and groups engage with it. Based on a long-term anthropological study, the book emphasises four individual themes: embodied identities, the landscape as a sensuous material form that is acted upon and in turn acts on people, the landscape as contested, and its relation to emotion. The landscape is discussed in relation to these themes as both ‘taskscape’ and ‘leisurescape’, and from the perspective of different user groups. First, those who manage the landscape and use it for work: conservationists, environmentalists, archaeologists, the Royal Marines, and quarrying interests. Second, those who use it in their leisure time: cyclists and horse riders, model aircraft flyers, walkers, people who fish there, and artists who are inspired by it. The book makes an innovative contribution to landscape studies and will appeal to all those interested in nature conservation, historic preservation, the politics of nature, the politics of identity, and an anthropology of Britain.

Interpreting Landscapes

Interpreting Landscapes
Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2016-06-03
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1315426285

Examines role of landscape in phenomenological study of ancient Britain.

London’s Urban Landscape

London’s Urban Landscape
Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 458
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1787355608

London’s Urban Landscape is the first major study of a global city to adopt a materialist perspective and stress the significance of place and the built environment to the urban landscape. Edited by Christopher Tilley, the volume is inspired by phenomenological thinking and presents fine-grained ethnographies of the practices of everyday life in London. In doing so, it charts a unique perspective on the city that integrates ethnographies of daily life with an analysis of material culture. The first part of the volume considers the residential sphere of urban life, discussing in detailed case studies ordinary residential streets, housing estates, suburbia and London’s mobile ‘linear village’ of houseboats. The second part analyses the public sphere, including ethnographies of markets, a park, the social rhythms of a taxi rank, and graffiti and street art. London’s Urban Landscape returns us to the everyday lives of people and the manner in which they understand their lives. The deeply sensuous character of the embodied experience of the city is invoked in the thick descriptions of entangled relationships between people and places, and the paths of movement between them. What stories do door bells and house facades tell us about contemporary life in a Victorian terrace? How do antiques acquire value and significance in a market? How does living in a concrete megastructure relate to the lives of the people who dwell there? These and a host of other questions are addressed in this fascinating book that will appeal widely to all readers interested in London or contemporary urban life.

Historical Ecologies, Heterarchies and Transtemporal Landscapes

Historical Ecologies, Heterarchies and Transtemporal Landscapes
Author: Celeste Ray
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351167707

Interlacing varied approaches within Historical Ecology, this volume offers new routes to researching and understanding human–environmental interactions and the heterarchical power relations that shape both socioecological change and resilience over time. Historical Ecology draws from archaeology, archival research, ethnography, the humanities and the biophysical sciences to merge the history of the Earth’s biophysical system with the history of humanity. Considering landscape as the spatial manifestation of the relations between humans and their environments through time, the authors in this volume examine the multi-directional power dynamics that have shaped settlement, agrarian, monumental and ritual landscapes through the long-term field projects they have pursued around the globe. Examining both biocultural stability and change through the longue durée in different regions, these essays highlight intersectionality and counterpoised power flows to demonstrate that alongside and in spite of hierarchical ideologies, the daily life of power is heterarchical. Knowledge of transtemporal human–environmental relationships is necessary for strategizing socioecological resilience. Historical Ecology shows how the past can be useful to the future.

Issues and Concepts in Historical Ecology

Issues and Concepts in Historical Ecology
Author: Carole L. Crumley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108420982

This book presents a practical, holistic research framework to help us both understand our past and build an appealing human future.

Exploring the Longue Durée

Exploring the Longue Durée
Author: J. David Schloen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 568
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN:

Fifty scholars who represent a wide range of nationalities and specialties--archaeologists, biblical scholars, philologists, and historians--have contributed essays in honor of Lawrence E. Stager, the Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel and Director of the Semitic Museum at Harvard University, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Various academic generations are represented: among the contributors to this volume are Professor Stager's former students and some of his own teachers, as well as a diverse group of his many friends and colleagues of all ages. Moreover, the studies collected herein span the gamut from detailed analyses of sites, artifacts, and texts to broad theoretical syntheses. Several authors draw directly upon Stager's theoretical work, invoking his model of "port power" and his ideas about kinship and "patrimonialism" in ancient Israel, thereby demonstrating his influence as one of the leading Near Eastern archaeologists of his generation. Others discuss archaeological phenomena that have figured prominently in Stager's research over the years, such as ancient horticulture, Iron Age houses and villages, and finds related to the site of Ashkelon in Israel, where he has directed excavations since 1985. The remaining chapters are a fascinating sample of research in biblical studies (often with a sociological emphasis, as in Stager's own work), in nonbiblical philology, and in the archaeology of Israel and the eastern Mediterranean region in the Bronze and Iron Ages.