EAA Annual Meeting, Cork, Ireland. 5–11 September 2005

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AVID

ONTIJN

NIVERSITY OF

EIDEN

ERIEL

LATCHIE

NIVERSITY

OLLEGE

ONDON

TEVENS

NIVERSITY

OLLEGE

ONDON

ARRATING THE ENVIRONMENT

BOUNDING SOCIAL PRACTICE TO LANDSCAPE ANDENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

RIDAY AFTERNOON

Session abstract

Increased interest and improved methods in the analysis of archaeological landscapes andenvironmental materials throughout Europe has led to a situation where, in some areas, we are provided with high-quality spatial and temporal patterning. Despite these advances, theintegration of such data into theoretical archaeological approaches does not seem to have kept pace with the accumulation of data. Indeed, the preponderance to re-use outmoded datasets isrepresentative of how archaeologists orientate their way around interpreting relationships between palaeoenvironmental evidence and human activity, highlighting the conceptualdivide between archaeological practice and interpretation. We suggest that understanding of the archaeological environment requires a comprehension of how different ways of inhabitingthe world became possible, whereby the values that people give to land, plants, animals andfood is fundamental to the construction of social practice.This session will explore the application of landscape and environmental analyses in theconstruction of social and cultural archaeological narratives. We would like to encourage papers that demonstrate how environmental data is a method of enquiry into the ways thathumans bound their own biographies to that of the environmental resources around them.From this perspective, social practice does not stand in opposition to nature, but is created in acomplex network of exchanges that bind different lifeforms together in various, what has beenreferred to as, symbiotic relationships.

14:15-14:20 Introduction

Fay Stevens,

University College London

14:20-14:40

Introduction

Environmental narratives: methodological and theoreticalperspectives

David Fontijn,

University of Leiden

; Meriel McClatchie,

University College London;

FayStevens,

University College London

In this paper we will explore the methodological, theoretical and anthropologicalapplications of landscape and environmental analyses in the construction of social andcultural archaeological narratives. We suggest that an understanding of the archaeologicalenvironment requires a comprehension of how different ways of inhabiting the world became possible, whereby the values that people give to land, plants, animals and food is fundamentalto the construction of social practice. Thus, narrating the environment can be considered amethod of enquiry into the ways that humans bind their own biographies to that of environmental resources around them.

14:40-15:00 Lakes, life and landscape - merging the archaeology of watery places

Christina Fredengren,

Discovery Programme, Ireland

This paper explores different routes towards understanding the different wateryenvironments that the Lake Settlement Project of the Discovery Programme works with.

EAA Annual Meeting, Cork, Ireland. 5–11 September 2005

2 of 2There are challenges in merging environmental investigations with theories about socialagency and landscape, but also great gains to make. In particular this paper will draw onanalyses of fieldwork in Lough Kinale, Co. Longford and Lough Gara, Co. Sligo, Ireland inorder to develop ideas of how different types of waters may have been commented upon andchanged over time. It will also try to get to terms with issues of human and non-humanagency and variations in the perception of waters over time.

15:00-15:20 New approaches to Bronze Age landscapes in Northwestern Europe:relating land use to field

systems

Helen Lewis,

University of Cambridge

This paper will explore new approaches in the investigation of field systems and landmanagement, using case studies from Northwestern Europe .

15:20-15:30Discussion15:30-15:50CoffeeBreak 15:50-15:55 Introduction

Meriel McClatchie,

University College London

15:55-16:15

Living in the Dutch river area during the Bronze Age

Peter Jongste,

University of Leiden

In the last decade, numerous Bronze Age settlement-sites have been excavated in theDutch river area. The emphasis on the cultural landscape, using physical geography, botanyand zoology has yielded an abundance of new data on human occupation that is currently being studied at Leiden University (see:www.bronstijd.nl). This not only has led to newinsights in the layout of the cultural Bronze Age landscape, but also in its long-termdevelopments. Phases of relative stable conditions favourable to occupation alternated with periods of instability locally when rivers changed their courses or on a regional level when thenumber of alvulsions grew significantly (e.g. during the Late Bronze Age). The mainobjective of this study is to assess the human responses towards these profound changes in thedynamics of the landscape and the environmental constraints. Despite these, the river arearemained populated throughout the whole of the 2nd millennium BC.

16:15-16:35 Working on the archaeology of a non-human animal: the wider implicationsof research on Castor fiber, the European beaver

Bryony Coles,

University of Exeter

Archaeological fieldwork in wetland contexts has produced evidence for the activitiesof the European beaver, Castor fiber, and for human exploitation of the animal. This has prompted further investigation of the species, first to improve the recognition of its presencein the archaeological record and then to achieve a better understanding of the animal and itsvalues to humans. Fieldwork in present-day beaver territories in western Europe, reinforced by the ecological literature, has demonstrated the significance of the beaver as a keystoneecological species. Most authorities discuss this in terms of modern environmentalmanagement, but for archaeologists it also has important implications for our understandingof past environments, and these will emerge in the course of the paper.However, it is the by-products of the fieldwork which will form the main focus of this paper,the unexpected and sometimes disconcerting comparisons between the archaeology of beaversand that of humans. They range from practical field matters which have offered some new perceptions of the nature of archaeological sites, to a suite of similarities and differences