1st Edition

The Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes The Archaeology of Adaptation

Edited By Marcy Rockman, James Steele Copyright 2003
    276 Pages
    by Routledge

    272 Pages
    by Routledge

    This innovative and important volume presents the archaeological and anthropological foundations of the landscape learning process. Contributions apply the related fields of ethnography, cognitive psychology, and historical archaeology to the issues of individual exploration, development of trail systems, folk knowledge, social identity, and the role of the frontier in the growth of the modern world.

    A series of case studies examines the archaeological evidence for and interpretations of landscape learning from the movement of the first pre-modern humans into Europe, peoplings of the Old and New World at the end of the Ice Age, and colonization of the Pacific, to the English colonists at Jamestown.

    The final chapters summarize the implications of the landscape learning idea for our understanding of human history and set out a framework for future research.

    List of Tables and Figures  List of Contributors  Foreword  Acknowledgements  Editors' Introduction  Section One: Conceptual Frameworks  1. Knowledge and Learning in the Archaeology of Colonization  2. Human Wayfinding Behaviour  3. Colonization of New Land by Hunter-Gatherers: Expectations and Implications Based on Ethnographic Data  4. Tracking the Role of Pathways in the Evolution of a Human Landscape: the St. Croix Riverway in Ethnohistorical Perspective  5. Mining Rushes and Landscape Learning in the Modern World  Section 2: Case Studies  6. Landscape Learning and the Earliest Peopling of Europe  7. The Social Context of Landscape Learning and the Lateglacial - Early Postglacial Recolonization of the British Isles  8. "Where Do We Go From Here?": Modelling the Decision-Making Process During Exploratory Dispersal  9. Deerslayers, Pathfinders and Icemen: Origins of the European Neolithic as Seen from the Frontier  10. Entering Uncharted Waters: Models of Initial Colonization in Polynesia  11. The Weather is Fine: Wish You Were Here, Because I'm the Last One Alive: 'Learning' the Environment in the English New World Colonies  Section 3: Advances in Theory and Method  12. Colonizing New Landscapes: Archaeological Detectability of the First Phase  13. Lessons in Landscape Learning  Index

    Biography

    Marcy Rockman is a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson. James Steele is a Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at Southampton University.

    'Excellent ... Marcy Rockman and James Steele have done a good job.' - Landscape History

    "...this book makes important contributions to the continuing study of landscape, and the bridging interdisiplinary gaps between archaeology and anthropology." Joost Fontein, University of Edinburgh