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Vox POPULI: Landscape archaeology in Mediterranean Europe - Graeme Barker and David Mattingly (series edd.), THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPES (Oxbow Books 1999, 2000). £150/$260 (if ordered as a set). - Vol. 1. John Bintliff and Kostas Sbonias (edd.), RECONSTRUCTING PAST POPULATION TRENDS IN MEDITERRANEAN EUROPE (Oxbow Books 1999). Pp. xviii + 261, 142 figs., 25 tables. ISBN 1-900188-62-7. £55/$90. - Vol. 2. Phillipe Leveau, Frédéric Trément, Kevin Walsh and Graeme Barker (edd.), ENVIRONMENTAL RECONSTRUCTION IN MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY (Oxbow Books 1999). Pp. xxii + 210, 102 figs., 13 tables. ISBN 1-900188-63-5. £40/$70. - Vol. 3. Mark Gillings, David Mattingly and Jan Van Dalen (edd.), GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY (Oxbow Books 1999). Pp. xxi + 137, 82 figs., 14 tables. ISBN 1-900188-64-3. £30/$50. - Vol. 4. Marinella Pasquinucci and Frédéric Trément (edd.), NON-DESTRUCTIVE TECHNIQUES APPLIED TO LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY (Oxbow Books 2000). Pp. xx + 276, 201 figs., 3 tables. ISBN 1-900188-74-0. £45/$75. - Vol. 5. Riccardo Francovich and Helen Patterson (edd.), EXTRACTING MEANING FROM PLOUGHSOIL ASSEMBLAGES (Oxbow Books 2000). Pp. xxii + 266, 144 figs., 17 tables. ISBN 1-900188-75-9. £55/$90.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

John F. Cherry
John F. Cherry*
Affiliation:
Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan
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Journal of Roman Archaeology , Volume 15 , 2002 , pp. 561 - 573
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Copyright © Journal of Roman Archaeology L.L.C. 2002

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References

1 Hereafter AML. Chapters in the 5 individual volumes will be cited here as 1.1,2.1, etc.

2 I list the Working Party coordinators and Research Fellows at each of the partner universities. Leicester: Overall project coordinator, G. Barker; Working Parry 1 coordinator, D. Mattingly; Research Fellow in Geographical Information Systems, J. van Dalen (Netherlands). Durham: Working Party 2 coordinator, J. Bintliff; Research Fellow in Demographic Modelling, K. Sbonias (Greece). Aix-en-Provence: Working Party 3 coordinator, P. Leveau; Research Fellow in Geoarchaeology, K. Walsh (UK). Siena: Working Party 4 coordinator, R. Francovich; Research Fellow in Field Survey Methodologies, H. Patterson (UK). Pisa: Working Party 5 coordinator, M. Pasquinucci; Research Fellow in Remote Sensing, F. Trément (France). Ljubljana: coordinator, P. Novaković; Research Fellow in Geographical Information Systems, H. Simoni (Greece). It may be noted that the numbering of these Working Parties, confusingly, does not equate to the respective AML volume numbers: AML 1 = Working Party 2, AML 2 = Working Party 3, AML 3 = Working Party 1, AML 4 = Working Party 5, and AML 5 = Working Party 4.

3 This description of the editorial process, however, is at odds with the fact that some of the papers in AML volumes with a 2000 publication date include bibliographic citations as recent as 1999.

4 The English of certain papers written by non-native speakers is in places very unidiomatic, and occasionally unintelligible — e.g., “… to place the Project at a level of excellence in the international research community allowing to the CNR a presence of guide, or at least, paritectic [sic] in the major international projects …” (from the paper of R. M. Cavalli et al., 4.3, at p. 31). Such problems appear to be a lapse on the part of the British series editors in what are otherwise volumes edited and produced to a very high standard.

5 E.g., K. Sbonias, “Introduction to issues in demography and survey” (1.1); K. Walsh, “Mediterranean landscape archaeology and environmental reconstruction” (2.1); F. Trément, “L'apport des méthodes non-destructives à l'analyse des sites archéologiques: le point de vue de l'archéologue” (4.1); D. Mattingly, “Methods of collection, recording and quantification” (5.2).

6 A fuller version of this study has now appeared: Bintliff, J. L., “Regional survey, demography and the rise of complex societies in the Aegean,” JFA 24 (1997) 1–38 Google Scholar.

7 For a detailed discussion of these issues, in the context of one recent intensive survey, see Cherry, J. F., Davis, J. L. and Mantzourani, E., Landscape archaeology as long-term history: Northern Keos in the Cycladic islands (Los Angeles 1991) 457–79Google Scholar.

8 See Bintliff, J., Howard, P. and Snodgrass, A., “The hidden landscape of prehistoric Greece,” JMA 12 (1999) 139–68Google Scholar, with further discussion and debate in JMA 13 (2000) 100–23Google Scholar; Davis, J. L., “Are the landscapes of Greek prehistory hidden? A comparative approach,” in Alcock, S. E. and Cherry, J. F. (edd.), Side-by-side survey: comparative regional studies in the Mediterranean world (Oxford forthcoming)Google Scholar.

9 Thus, e.g., Smith (1.11) writes about population mobility and migration, without citing important Mediterranean-based studies such as Osborne, R., “The potential mobility of human populations,” OJA 10 (1991) 231–52Google Scholar.

10 As also in his book Demography and Roman society (Baltimore 1992)Google Scholar.

11 Brunt, P. A., Italian manpower, 225 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford 1971)Google Scholar; Beloch, K. J., Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (Leipzig 1886)Google Scholar.

12 Benoit, F., “L'usine de meunerie hydraulique de Barbégal (Arles),” RA 45.1 (1940) 19–79 Google Scholar.

13 Grove, A. T. and Rackham, O., The nature of Mediterranean Europe: an ecological history (New Haven 2001)Google Scholar.

14 For essential grounding in GIS and related spatial technologies, as they apply to archaeological data, a more systematic and up-to-date manual is Wheatley, D. and Gillings, M. (edd.), Spatial technology and archaeology: the archaeological applications of GIS (London 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note that Gillings was also one of the co-editors of AML 3.

15 Allen, K. M. S., Green, S. W. and Zubrow, E. B. W. (edd.), Interpreting space: GIS and archaeology (London 1990)Google Scholar; Gaffney, V. and Stanc̆ic̆, Z., GIS approaches to regional analysis: a case study of the island of Hvar (Ljubljana 1991)Google Scholar. Stanc̆ic̆ and Gaffney provide a follow-on paper in AML (3.8), “GIS-based analysis of the population trends on the island of Brac̆ in Central Dalmatia”. A useful historical perspective on European applications of GIS in archaeology is Harris, T. M. and Lock, G. R., “Toward an evaluation of GIS in European archaeology: the past, the present and future of theory and applications,” in Lock, G. and Stanc̆ic̆, Z. (edd.), Archaeology and Geographical Information Systems: a European perspective (London 1995) 349–66Google Scholar.

16 On the other hand, there are papers in some of the other AML volumes that might perhaps have found a better home in AML 3, such as M. Forte's chapter (4.8) on “Digital classification and visualization systems of archaeological landscapes”.

17 A more detailed and ambitious list of ways of displaying information relevant to archaeology in a GIS context is provided in the paper of J. Baena et al. (3.13, at pp. 134-35): distribution maps of sites, structures or artefacts; superimposed overlays of such distributions on others showing different factors (e.g., relief, land-use, aerial imagery); diachronic variation in such distributions; spatial relationships between sites and exploitable resources; models illustrating the exploitation of the environment and resources; models of site hierarchies; models of areas with archaeological potential; spatial distribution of statistical results; palaeoecological reconstructions; and the analysis of distributions within digital terrain models.

18 E.g., V. Gaffney and P. M. van Leusen, “Postscript: GIS, environmental determinism and archaeology” in Lock and Stanc̆ic̆ (supra n.15) 367-82.

19 Most notably Tilley, C., A phenomenology of landscape: places, paths and monuments (Oxford 1994)Google Scholar and Thomas, J., “The politics of vision and the archaeologies of landscape,” in Bender, B. (ed.), Landscape: politics and perspectives (Providence 1993) 19–48 Google Scholar.

20 Much of this has already appeared in Attema, P. A. J., “Inside and outside the landscape: perceptions of the Pontine Region,” Archaeological Dialogues 3 (1996) 176–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 These two papers could profitably be set alongside that by N. Terrenato in AML 5, since all three, in different ways, are concerned with generalization from fragmentary data, or what Terrenato (5.7, at p.69) usefully terms “a theory of incomplete distributions” in archaeology.

22 Recent work in Greece has met with some success in isolating spectral emission characteristics that indicate, for instance, the exposed Plio-Pleistocene sediments often associated with Palaeolithic cultural materials, clay beds and marble quarries exploited in antiquity, abandoned water channels, ancient architecture totally hidden by dense brush, etc.: see Stein, C. A. and Cullen, B. C., “Satellite imagery and archaeology: a case-study from Nikopolis,” AJA 98 (1994) 316 Google Scholar; Wiseman, J. R., “Space missions and ground truth: satellite-age technologies yield a trove of new archaeological data,” Archaeology 49 (1996) 11–13 Google Scholar.

23 It is perhaps a general criticism of the organization of AML that individual papers remain “locked in” to the volumes that resulted from each colloquium, rather than being assigned to whichever POPULUS volume provides the best fit, so as to give better overall cohesiveness.

24 E.g., Scollar, I., Tabbagh, A., Hesse, A. and Herzog, I., Archaeological prospecting and remote sensing (Cambridge 1990)Google Scholar.

25 Haselgrove, C., Millett, M. and Smith, A. (edd.), Archaeology from the ploiighsoil: studies in the collection and interpretation of field survey data (Sheffield 1985)Google Scholar; Schofield, A. J. (ed.), Interpreting artefact scatters: contributions to ploiighsoil archaeology (Oxford 1991)Google Scholar.

26 In contrast, for example, to the importance accorded to lowland versus upland differences in Barker, G. and Lloyd, J. (edd.), Roman landscapes: archaeological survey in the Mediterranean region (London 1991)Google Scholar.

27 Renfrew, C. and Wagstaff, M. (edd.), An island polity: the archaeology of exploitation on Melos (Cambridge 1982) 10–23, 58–71, 136–55, 291–309 Google Scholar; Sanders, G. D. R., “Two kastra on Melos and their relations in the archipelago,” in Lock, P. and Sanders, G. D. R. (edd.), The archaeology of medieval Greece (Oxford 1996) 147–77, esp. figs. 3–4Google Scholar. J. W. Hayes' harsh criticism (5.12, at p. 107) of the Melos survey's failings in this respect lacks a proper historical perspective on the undeveloped state of both survey archaeology and post-Roman pottery studies in Greece a quarter-century ago.

28 These methods were presented much more fully in the final publication: Carreté, J.-M., Keay, S. J. and Millett, M., A Roman provincial capital and its hinterland: the survey of the territory of Tarragona 1985-90 (JRA Suppl. 15, 1995)Google Scholar.

29 Terrenato's paper is accompanied by two very effective figures (7.5 and 7.6), in full colour, showing computer simulation results. These, however, are the only colour figures to be found in all 5 AML volumes. Production costs may have precluded the wider use of colour; but many papers include illustrations that are obviously the output of GIS software, and these often reproduce very poorly in grey-scale only (some, indeed, are thereby rendered virtually unintelligible). This is a more general and growing problem in publication, as regional projects make ever-greater use of GIS.

30 These two papers would have fitted better within the theme of AML 4 (see n.23 supra). An intriguing aspect of the chapter by Music et al. is the demonstration (fig. 15.2) that a digital elevation model of the late Roman settlement, produced by topographic survey accurate to 10 mm, reveals the architectural layout of the site with remarkable clarity, even before the application of 4 types of geophysical survey technique.

31 Unless, of course, this is implicit, as a consequence of a general acceptance of the “pots = people” concept (discussed by J. Bintliff and K. Sbonias in 5.23).

32 All these phrases appear on p. iv of the General Editors' Introduction (Barker and Mattingly).

33 P. ix of the General Editors' Introduction. However, one of the POPULUS organizers has informed me that this Manual may not now appear.

34 Blanton, R. E., “Mediterranean myopia,” Antiquity 75 (2001) 627–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Blanton, R. E. et al., Monte Albán's hinterland, part 1 (Ann Arbor 1982)Google Scholar; id. et al, Ancient Oaxaca: the Monte Albán state (Cambridge 1999); id. et al, Ancient Mesoamerica: a comparison of change in three regions (Cambridge 1993); id., Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine settlement patterns of the coast lands of Western Rough Cilicia (BAR S879, Oxford 2000); id., “The evolution of complexity in Mesoamerica and the Mediterranean,” forthcoming in Alcock and Cherry (supra n. 8).

36 Blanton (supra n.34) 627. The notion that G. Willey's Peruvian Viru Valley Survey in the late 1940s “invented” archaeological survey and regional analysis appears to have become entrenched among Americanist archaeologists, despite the clear evidence for the adoption of a regional perspective in the archaeology of a number of other parts of the world at about the same time or even earlier: see Billman, B. R. and Feinman, G. M. (edd.), Settlement pattern studies in the Americas: fifty years since Virú (Washington, DC 1999), esp. 1–11 Google Scholar.

37 Blanton ibid. 628. Alcock (5.1) tellingly contrasts the University of Messenia Expedition target territory of c.1,500 sq. km in the 1960s with the 1% of that same territory covered by the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project in the 1990s; the trend since then has been towards even greater survey intensity (the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey, for instance, covering less than 5 sq. km in several seasons of fieldwork with large teams).

38 Blanton ibid. 629.

39 The same point is made by E. Fentress in her paper entitled “What are we counting for?” (AML 5.5), which is headed by an apposite quotation by an anthropologist: “The refinements of micro-measurement lead the observer below the level of significant phenomena, to delicate precautions to account for the wobble of individual chairs, unevenness of floor, slipperiness of linoleum or variation in woodgrain and so on” ( Ardener, E., “The new anthropology and its critics,” Man 6 [1971] 451)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.