Landscape archaeology is quite a young discipline, comprising computer based mapping and remote sensing technology as well as earth and nature sciences, applied to landscape in addition to traditional archaeological and historical methods. The aim is to trace human impact on top and below today’s surface and by this read a particular landscape’s complete history. While the discipline was developed in England (and the US) and is most widespread there, some Italian universities are at the forefront when it comes to developing and applying new methods in this field. Padua University certainly is one of them, having the medieval period as its primary focus.

In a European context there are other approaches to landscape, but French "archéogéographie" is not only denoted by a different word but comprises another set of methods. In German speaking countries “Landschaftsarchäologie” developed mainly as part of the study of medieval deserted villages – “Wüstungsforschung”. Today there is – with some exceptions – not as much dynamic to be felt in this field. So it can be worthwhile to go to a Summer School in Italy to learn and discuss the newest methods and approaches with some of the leading scholars in landscape archaeology and associated disciplines in an intimate and intense atmosphere.

Summer Schools are an academic education and communication tool well-established at Italian universities and are a mixture between a compact postgraduate student seminar and a small specialists' conference focussing on a single topic. They usually comprise a whole week and are held in English. In this case not only the lecturers came from many different countries, but also the 25 postgraduates.1 There were practical exercises with MARCO NEBBIA (Durham) in ArcGIS for the participants on most of the mornings and lectures in the afternoon – also open to paying guests. A half day excursion led to sites in the surrounding Euganean Hills having been tackled previously in the lessons. The papers given at this Summer School will be the base for a “Handbook of Landscape Archaeology” Padua University intends to publish.

GIAN PIETRO BROGIOLO (Padua), the present chair holder for Medieval Archaeology at the University of Padua, stressed that we are moving from an archaeology of sites to an archaeology of relations or an archaeology of complexity. Padua not only has quite a long tradition in projects with landscape archaeology, but is also just starting a new one with many participating scholars: it will put the Euganean Hills in the context with the neighbouring towns of Padua, Este and Monselice from the Roman to the medieval period.

ANDREW REYNOLDS (London) brought in the British perspective by pointing out that nowadays we tend to have many "hyper specialists" – for example on the literary works of Bede – who communicate only within their closed circles. It is also overlooked that some problems, like ceramics or the origin of villages and towns, do not need more and more case studies, but in general can be considered as "solved". Archaeologists focussing on the Anglo-Saxon period in England are – according to Reynolds – regrettably inclined to communicate rather with outside disciplines, than within the archaeological sub-disciplines. Landscape archaeology would be one way to take down the boundaries between the disciplines and go for a new more holistic approach in the study of the (medieval) past.

With JOSÉ MARIA MARTÍN CIVANTOS (Granada) the view opened up both geographically and temporally. He pointed out that there is an inextricable link between cultural, biological and agricultural diversity. There are six agreed hotspots of this biocultural memory worldwide: Indonesia, India, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and China. There people of many ethnicities, speaking many different languages, live in an environment that is not only rich in wild species but also in varieties of plants grown and animals bred. Europe or the Mediterranean are in the above – but not in Martín Civantos’ view – no hotspots for sustainable human ecosystems. He applies the biological concept of metabolism to social systems and observes – in a way following Marx – their throughput of energy and materials in order to maintain their internal structure. Personally I would like to add the question: how much innovation and change is possible in societies that preserve diversities over such a long time span?

The following day was concerned with new methods of remote sensing which play a central role in landscape archaeology. SIMON CRUTCHLEY from English Heritage showed how airborne laser scanning or lidar can be used additionally to already established tools like aerial photography in recording new archaeological sites and in monitoring known ones. Especially since it is now possible to penetrate wooded areas and see the relief of the forest floor. Taking Stonehenge as an example, he illustrated another new method, which in comparison with lidar can be obtained at low cost: SfM (Structure from motion) generates 3D-models from a range of photographs taken at different angles from a given object using many of the techniques of traditional photogrammetry.

DOMINIC POWLESLAND (Cambridge) and his Landscape Research Centre can look back on more than 35 years of research in the Vale of Pickering (North Yorkshire, GB). The project – being amongst the largest of its kind in a limited region – combines airborne surveys, ground based geophysics and extensive excavations. Its results have led to a re-evaluation of what has been assumed about settlement and population density in the valleys of lowland England. At the same time it has shown the threats to the buried archaeological record by industrialized agriculture, for example by deep ploughing and the use of fertilizers. Powlesland wants us not to forget about the “past of the past” or the duration of visible monuments: for example that people in the Bronze Age lived with the barrows of the Stone Age. Here I would like to add that it was not only the vision but also the tales about these monuments that shaped the landscape perception of our ancestors.

ARMANDO DE GUIO (Padua) can serve as a living example, how someone – at an advanced age – still can be in the spearhead in developing application methods for the latest techniques of remote sensing: Radar images taken from airplanes or from satellites exist from nearly any part of the world and can be obtained at rather low cost. Radar in contrast to lidar is able to penetrate into the soil; under best conditions up to 10 m. De Guio and his team have tested the method in several case-studies in Northeast-Italy and were for example able to detect buried Bronze Age ditches, which had not been visible in lidar. Fitting radar images to the earth’s surface, removing geometric distortions and backscatter still requires a lot of additional post-processing skills and even software to be developed before radar can be called a standard method of GEOBIA (GEOgraphic-Object-Based Image Analysis).

Archaeobotany represented by GIROLAMO FIORENTINO (Salento) can provide crucial data for the reconstruction of climate and landscape usage of the past. On-site samples from cereal remains from a silo can be analysed for their species, but also the carbon stable isotopes within the carbonized grains can be used to trace possible different provenances. Off-site samples of 14C-dated pollen from dry or wet sites tell us about the correlation between rainfall and plant growth in the specific region.

SYLVAIN BURRI (Aix-en-Provence/Marseille) can rightly call himself – at a comparatively young age – the inventor of the archaeology of incultum or more plainly speaking “forest archaeology”. In an admirable way he forms an interdisciplinary one-man-show applying archaeological, historical, geographical and ethnographical sources and methods to the object of his interest; the woodland areas of Provence (F). His studies show that areas not permanently cultivated were used in manifold ways and also cannot be called marginal. Mainly from written sources he has reconstructed an “agro-silvo-pastoral calendar” for medieval Provence, which shows in which months activities like tilling fields, harvesting of wood, beeswax and cork or coastal fishing were conducted. It visualizes successive and parallel activities during the year and shows what could have been done by the same person.

“The soil is the limit” could be called ROGER LANGOHR’s (Bruxelles) motto. Soil is “everywhere we walk” even underwater, on the moon and on Mars. The pedosphere – or the soil – is where atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere interact with the lithosphere. Langohr explained how soil maps are made, but also how the same parent material under varying ratios of precipitation and evaporation can result in diverse soils with different qualities. In the second part of his talk he drew attention to the Sonian Forest a former royal Belgian forest in the middle of the loess belt, which preserves in many parts an unchanged surface from the ice age. The forest’s soil is unique, because there has been no ploughing, no fertilizing and only minimal cattle grazing and it thus can serve as a reference for an area with minimum anthropogenic disturbance: a European primeval forest to be protected.

Micromorphology, a standard method in studying soil profiles, was explained by CRISTIANO NICOSIA (BRUXELLES). It is also one of the methods used to investigate ancient tillage. Certain micromorphological features like slaking or shearing can be taken together with macroscopical features as proof for plough marks. It is very hard though to date these marks and it is not possible to discriminate between mere agricultural tillage or ploughing for ritual purposes as it is it is assumed for parts of the Aosta valley.

YANNICK DEVOS (Bruxelles) explained how phosphate analyses – one of the several possible chemical analyses applied to soils in archaeology – can be used to trace different features within a settlement or zones of usage within a building. Phosphate will be enriched for example in stables and burials, but impoverished in streets and houses. In the second part of his talk Devos presented his studies on the “dark earth” or “terres noires” of medieval Brussels. “Dark earth”, which was originally thought to be limited to Late Roman sites, is now understood as a soil formation typical for human settlements or an “anthroposol” that can be the result of different processes. To better understand “dark earth” will be a key to many a “dark age” in archaeology.

Back to a more theoretical approach CARLO CITTER (Siena) presented a number of studies from all around the world, which had investigated the relationship between human settlement and natural environment over time in a given region using different methods. He considered strengths and weaknesses of theory driven vs. “common sense” vs. mathematical approaches. Drawing on his research Citter demonstrated how a land capability analysis of the Florence region can give a new explanation for historical events: in the 10th century the city destroyed all castles within a radius of 10 miles. What was by historians up to now interpreted mainly as enlargement of the political sphere can now be seen as the acquisition of enough arable land to ensure the food supply of more than 10 000 inhabitants.

Finally, it is regrettable that there were no women amongst the lecturers. Due to limited space this review can not even mention the students – male and female – who gave insights into their ongoing projects. GIS-based landscape archaeology – that could be drawn from this Summer School – is not only one of many new methods or a new way to illustrate old knowledge, it is a means to translate long descriptions in many languages as well as “mind maps” and distribution charts into the most commonly comprehensible lingua franca of tomorrow’s world archaeology: colourful images, 3D-models, graphs and numbers. GIS-based maps can be a means to compare the development of the relation between humans and nature across time and space.

Conference Overview:

Theoretical Landscapes

Gian Pietro Brogiolo (Padua): Detecting and Interpreting Landscape Transformations: Some Introductive Reflections

Andrew Reynolds (London): New Directions in Medieval Archaeology: An Anglo-Saxon Perspective

José Maria Martín Civantos (Granada): Biocultural Memory and Archaeology: Linking Ethnoecology and the History of Material Culture through Landscapes

New techniques in remote sensing: LIDAR

Simon Crutchley (English Heritage, GB): Can’t See the Wood for the Trees? Using Airborne LIDAR in Interpreting Archaeological Landscapes

Dominic Powlesland (Cambridge): Landscape to Lostscape: 35 Years of Multi-sensor and Multi-period Research into the Archaeological Landscape of the Vale of Pickering

Predictive modelling and interpreting land capability analysis

Carlo Citter (Siena): Evaluating the Environmental Sustainability of Human Settlements

Bioarchaeological studies

Girolamo Fiorentino (Salento): The Reconstruction of Landscape by On-site and Off-site Archaeo-paleobotanical Analyses

Sylvain Burri (Aix-en-Provence/Marseille): For an Archaeology of Incultum: methodological Aspects and Field Application in the Provence, France

Reading the soilscape and the anthropogenic impact in its evolution

Roger Langohr (Ghent): Basics in Archaeopedology

Cristiano Nicosia (Bruxelles): Soil Micromorphology and Human Impact on the Landscape

Yannick Devos (Bruxelles): Phosphate in Soils, Hidden Traces of Human Activity

New techniques in remote sensing: Radar

Armando De Guio (Padua): Radar Imaging and GEOBIA in Remotely Sensed Archaeology

Notes:
1http://www.lettere.unipd.it/discant/CatMedievale/Summerschool.html (accessed 7.11.2013)