Making Sense of an Historic LandscapeWhy is it that in some places around the world communities live in villages, while elsewhere people live in isolated houses scattered across the landscape? How does archaeology analyse the relationship between man and his environment? Making Sense of an Historic Landscape explores why landscapes are so varied and how the landscape archaeologist or historian can understand these differences. Local variation in the character of the countryside provides communities with an important sense of place, and this book suggests that some of these differences can be traced back to prehistory. In his discussion, Rippon makes use of a wide range of sources and techniques, including archaeological material, documentary sources, maps, field- and place-names, and the evidence contained within houses that are still lived in today, to illustrate how local and regional variations in the 'historic landscape' can be understood. Rippon uses the Blackdown Hills in southern England, which marked an important boundary in landscape character from prehistory onwards, as a specific case study to be applied as a model for other landscape areas. Even today the fields, place-names, and styles of domestic architecture are very different either side of the Blackdown Hills, and it is suggested that these differences in landscape character developed because of deep-rooted differences in the nature of society that are found right across southern England. Although focused on the more recent past, the volume also explores the medieval, Roman, and prehistoric periods. |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 The physical character of landscape | 15 |
3 The most beautiful landskip in the world? The perceived character of landscape | 35 |
the pattern and language of settlement | 53 |
5 Houses in the landscape | 87 |
6 The character of the fieldscape | 111 |
7 Beyond the morphology of fieldscapes | 131 |
8 Reconstructing early medieval territorial arrangements | 151 |
the development of territorial structures in early Medieval western Wessex and beyond | 185 |
documentary evidence and palaeoenvironmental sequences | 205 |
12 Arable cultivation and animal husbandry in the medieval period | 241 |
13 Arable cultivation and animal husbandry in the Roman period | 263 |
14 Regional variation in landscape character during the late prehistoric and Roman periods | 287 |
communities and their landscapes | 315 |
Bibliography | 345 |
| 393 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acres agricultural amounts animal appear arable assemblages associated average barley Blackdown Hills boundary Britain buildings cattle central Somerset century cereal chalk chalk downland Chapter characterized church clear common compared continued contrast Cornwall covered crops Culm Measures cultivation density Devon Domesday dominant Dorset early medieval east eastern enclosed enclosure England estates evidence example extensive Farm field systems former further grain greater historic landscape houses Hundred identified important Iron Age Jurassic land landscape character late later lowlands major manor marked medieval period Middle names nature oats once open fields parish particularly pasture pays place-names places plough population present Puckington recorded reflect regional relatively river Roman rural seen settlement patterns sheep side significant soils sources South West study area suggests Survey Table territory towns types vales valley variation villages western wheat woodland