- Benjamin, Kucher, University of Alberta; Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology
- Lyndsay Dagg, University of Alberta; Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology
Landscape is a vital part of any community. They affect and are affected by culture and those who live in them. Thus they are also a vital area of study for any archaeologist trying to understand a community. In 1982 Lewis Binford published “The Archaeology of Place” where he argued for the importance of understanding the relationships among places. Now, 40 years later, understanding the relationships between people and places is still just as important despite the methods used to do this changing greatly. Researchers have borrowed technologies from other fields including Geology and Geography and applied them to archaeological research. Archaeologists have a large array of tools at their disposal; Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with Multi-spectral and LiDAR sensors, and Magnetic Radiometry to name a few. It is through these technologies that we want to explore how the sub-discipline of landscape archaeology has and continues to develop. Using “a landscape approach provides cultural–historical frameworks to evaluate and interpret diverse observations about spatial and temporal variability in the structure and organization of material traces” (Anschuetz et al 2001). How then, are these theoretical frameworks, methods and technologies challenging our understanding of the complex nature of existing relationships between people, places, and material?
Anschuetz, Kurt F., Richard H. Wilshusen, and Cherie L. Scheick. 2001. ‘An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions’. Journal of Archaeological Research 9 (2): 157–211. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016621326415.
Binford, Lewis R. 1982. ‘The Archaeology of Place’. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1 (1): 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(82)90006-X