Cultural Landscape As Palimpsest Revisit PDF
Cultural Landscape As Palimpsest Revisit PDF
Cultural Landscape As Palimpsest Revisit PDF
AARGnews
Offprint from:
Contents
Editorial 3
Chairman’s piece: by Steve Davis 6
AARG Conference 2019 – venue, dates and call for papers 8
AARG’s new website: https://a‐a‐r‐g.eu by Agnes Schneider 10
Cultural landscape as palimpsest revisited by Mikołaj Kostyrko and Grzegorz Kiarszys 12
LiDAR for Italian archaeology. High‐resolution elevation data to enrich our understanding
of the defensive circuits of a protohistoric site in Southern Italy by Jitte Waagen 15
AARG Conversation No 4(1): Darja Grosman and Rog Palmer: 12 September 2018 26
Searching for remains of the Great War – prisoner of war camps in Poland
in perspective of aerial prospection by Mikołaj Kostyrko and Dawid Kobiałka 33
Drones + images = archives ? by Rog Palmer 45
Cropmarks 48
Review note: Tom Condit, Mark Keegan and many others. Aerial investigation and
mapping of the Newgrange landscape, Brú na Bóinne, Co. Meath: The Archaeology
of the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site Interim Report, December 2018. by Rog Palmer 51
Books and papers of interest? 52
AARG: general information, membership, addresses, student scholarships 60
More posters from AARG 2018: 61
Felice Perciante, Landscape archeology: the Swedish Geodatabase example of
multistratified monitoring
Felice Perciante, The threat of intensive agriculture on the ancient landscape:
Ager Picentinus
AARGnews 58: April 2019
At the end of last year, while visiting one of archaeological conferences devoted to
remote sensing methods, we heard some of the researchers addressing the matter of landscape
and palimpsest using expressions such as “a palimpsest compressed into an image” (in
reference to an aerial photograph) or “palimpsest that LiDAR data shows”. It is highly
possible that the speakers used those particular expressions as rhetorical figures, in order to
raise the dramatic tension during their presentations. It is important to state that by doing so,
they were referring to our prior knowledge or our familiarity with the expression of
palimpsest in the context of landscape interpretation. We believe that, through having a closer
look at different ‘mental shortcuts’ or in other cases little ‘mistakes’ that are often ignored,
one can also formulate questions regarding a bigger picture of our archaeological
understanding of the past.
One can be quite certain that archaeologists are aware that the palimpsest refers to an
analytical (hermeneutic) concept and that it is impossible for it to be shown by anything other
than us (people/researchers). It can’t be compressed in anything as it is a means of
deconstructing things. One could say that an archaeologist reading the landscape ‘through the
lens’ of remote sensing data while interpreting and untangling a palimpsest is doing nothing
other than reverse engineering. The outcome of such a process is translated into words or a
drawn descriptive interpretation of remote sensing data – in other words a representation of
our thoughts (narration). It is through these steps that we compress and reduce landscape of its
animate, and quite often intimate, components regarded as meaningless to archaeological
narrativization of the world we live in. We must keep in mind that at the same time this
reductionist step is creative. Not only new meaning arises, but new entities as well, i.e. in a
form of spatial data bases – palimpsests of our own creation (Johnson & Ouimet, 2018).
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archaeology, the cultural landscape started to be seen as a theoretical construct that required
specific types of preliminary knowledge along with a critical approach and empirical evidence
(Barford, 2005, 2005; Casey, 2008; Johnston, 1998; Tilley, 1994; Wylie, 2009). Therefore,
landscape palimpsest ceased to exist as something that could be objectively ‘discovered’ and
became a tool of narrating and understanding of material relics of past human acts. It means
that palimpsest is created by an archaeologist in the process of critical interpretation of the
archaeological record (Johnson & Ouimet 2018). Such a conclusion also leads to the notion
that the idea of cultural landscape itself cannot be simply reduced to its physical surrounding
but is tightly connected to our engagement with it as well as our prior knowledge.
Archaeologists working with spatial information quite often feel that more data
constitutes better research and that this situation leads to a richer and more complete
reconstruction of the past (Opitz & Herrmann, 2018: 26–30). Isn’t that the main reason
standing behind an ever-growing focus of archaeologists on computer vision and algorithm-
based interpretation of remote sensing data? This subconscious state deriving from inductive
reasoning appears to be very tempting. However, we can be somewhat sure that higher
quantity of data does not guarantee qualitative shift (or improvement) in archaeological
narration and understanding of the past.
Computer processing of the collected data allows us to create aesthetic and very
persuasive presentations of the results obtained. However, the qualitative change in
archaeological narrations cannot be achieved by simple growth in collected datasets and
improvement of their precision, but through the introduction of new theoretical perspectives.
Which way should we proceed in order to break the loop of this ‘hermeneutic circle’
which binds the way archaeologist think (Żuk, 2005)? The answer to this question is neither
easy nor new. We argue that scholars should stress a stronger emphasis in presenting the
development of their interpretation and to reveal different biases that take part in this process
(Brophy, 2005a, 2005b; Cowley & Gilmour, 2005; Hauser, 2007; Millican, 2012;
Rączkowski, 1999; Wickstead & Barber, 2012). In other words, we should denude our doubts
and share the challenges we encounter while working with remote sensing data and constantly
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reflect upon the goal of our work. Those thoughts should not be a single focus of the work but
rather they should be embedded within ‘scientific’ articles.
References
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polskiej archeologii (s. 379–388). ad-rem.
Brophy, K. (2005a). Subjectivity, bias and perception in aerial archaeology. In K. Brophy & D.
Cowley (Ed.), From the Air: Understanding Aerial Archaeology (s. 33–49). Stroud.
Brophy, K. (2005b). The hermeneutic spiral: aerial archaeology and subjectivity. AARGnews
Supplement, 1, 5–11.
Casey, S. E. (2008). Place in landscape archaeology: a western philosophical prelude. In B. David
& J. Thomas (Ed.), Handbook of landscape archaeology (s. 44–50). Walnut Creek (CA): Left
Coast Press.
Cowley, D. C., & Gilmour, S. M. (2005). Some observations on the nature of aerial survey. In K.
Brophy & D. Cowley (Ed.), From the Air–understanding aerial archaeology. Stroud: Tempus,
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Crawford, O. G. S. (1953). Archaeology in the field. London: Phoenix House.
Hauser, K. (2007). Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology, and the British Landscape 1927-
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Johnson, K. M., & Ouimet, W. B. (2018). An observational and theoretical framework for
interpreting the landscape palimpsest through airborne LiDAR. Applied Geography, 91, 32–44.
Johnston, R. (1998). The paradox of landscape. European Journal of Archaeology, 1(3), 313–325.
Millican, K. (2012). The outside inside: combining aerial photographs, cropmarks and landscape
experience. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 19(4), 548–563.
Mlekuž, D. (2011). Messy landscapes manifesto. AARGnews, 44, 22–23.
Opitz, R., & Herrmann, J. (2018). Recent trends and long-standing problems in archaeological
remote sensing. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 1(1), 19–41.
Rączkowski, W. (1999). Power of image: some ideas on post-processual aerial archaeology.
AARGnews, 19, 10–14.
Tilley, C. (1994). A phenomenology of landscape: places, paths and monuments. Oxford: Berg
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Wickstead, H., & Barber, M. (2012). A spectacular history of survey by flying machine!
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 22(1), 71–88.
Wylie, J. (2009). Landscape. London: Routledge.
Żuk, L. (2005). From hermetic circle to hermeneutic spiral and beyond? Some remarks on the
potential of TAARG*. AARGnews, 31, 27–31.
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