Place on the PlainsConceptualizing a Landscape

Approach to Archaeology

Terry BeaulieuUniversity of CalgaryPlains Anthropological ConferenceSaskatoon, Saskatchewan, 4-October-2012

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

Introduction

Landscape affects interpretations• Changing definition• Often vaguely or poorly defined• Leads to confusion and misunderstanding

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Three key concepts• Space• Place• Environment

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

Space

Newtonian space• Independent and unchanging• Space is location• Fixed and independent of human perception• Can be referenced either absolutely or relatively

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Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

Place

Place• Mobile, not fixed• Has varying levels of significance

Among places, between individual/groups and over time

Place• Should not be used interchangeably with space• Conceptual occupation of space• Constantly being created and recreated• Cultural construction of the mind

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

Environment

Environment• Intimately linked to space and place• “a piece of reality that is simply there” (Tuan 1979)• Exists independent of human conception• “a full sense of agency is never achieved” (Trifkovic 2006)

Affordances• What is offered by the environment (Gibson 1979)• Some claim they are simply environmental properties• Relational affordances (Chemero 2003)

The relations between organisms and the environment

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

Landscape

Landscape• “is not ‘land’, is not ‘nature’, and it is not ‘space’”

(Ingold 1993)• The web created by the collection of recognized places• Is a cultural creation, not a physical reality

Landscape• All places within a landscape are related to one another• Unique over time and between individuals/groups • Are continuously being created and recreated

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

On The Northwestern Plains

Most archaeology has been ecological Landscape approaches

• Called into question assumptive biases e.g. the archaeological ‘site’ is a modern construction

• Proposed new interpretations of tipi ring significance

• Recognized the importance of place names• Realized the complex culture/environment connection• Presented new interpretations of seasonal movement• Reconciled the archaeological record and

environmental evidence with a non-Western world view

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological ConferencePlace on the Plains

Conclusion

Landscape Archaeology• The intersection of space, place, and environment• The recognition our world is but a perception of reality

that is inherently biased – but it is within those biases that the most satisfying interpretations are found

Terry Beaulieu2012 Plains Anthropological Conference

REFERENCES CITEDChemero, A.

2003 An Outline of a Theory of Affordances. Ecological Psychology. 15(2):181-195.Gibson, J.J.

1979 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Ingold, T.

1993 The Temporality of the Landscape. World Archaeology 25(2):152-174.Trifkovic, V.

2006 Persons and Landscapes: Shifting Scales of Landscape Archaeology. In Confronting Scale in Archaeology: Issues of Theory and Practice, edited by G. Lock and B. L. Molyneaux, pp. 257-271. Springer, New York, NY.Tuan, Y.F.

1979 Thought and Landscape: The Eye and the Mind's Eye. In The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes, edited by D. W. Meinig, pp. 89-102. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Thank you