Field system

Abstract: Long-strip and terraced fields systems form significant elements of the current cultural landscape. When evaluating their significance, it is necessary to determine their origins and to further specify their development. However, archeological researchers have encountered problems in dating field systems that were exposed to intensive agriculture in the 20th century AD. In this study, we describe a combination of approaches used to confirm the current landscape's High Medieval origin of the long-strip terrace-like field system of the former village of Malonin, which is located in the Bohemian Forest Mts., Czech Republic. The methods employed are radionuclide dating, geographic information system (GIS)-based reconstruction using old maps, historical documents, and archeological and palaeobotanical records. Our study evaluated the historical significance of field boundaries in the form of hedgerows, which have stabilized the pattern of the agricultural landscape since medieval times. The results of this study provide a basis for further land use planning and for conserving the cultural landscape.

Abstract: In some areas of eastern England, ‘semi-regular grid systems’ of field boundaries have been claimed as Roman or earlier. This paper examines in detail an example in south Norfolk, and questions the hypothesis that the Venta to Londinium Roman road is an intrusion into a co-axial pattern of fields and lanes. It is suggested instead that the earliest routes followed the local topography, and that they and other features such as the edges of greens and commons were only in occasional and coincidental conformity with the postulated early Roman or pre-Roman grid system, nor are non-conforming road-lines clearly explicable as diversions around subsequent medieval settlements. Parish boundaries do not relate consistently to any single dominant landscape pattern. Encroachments on the commons show late creation of several new field boundaries, with many others resulting from enclosure of medieval open fields. Consequently it is suggested that most of the field shapes shown on early nineteenth-century maps...

Abstract: The key to understanding a landscape is through its connections, which tie together people and environment within and beyond that landscape and across many different periods. This is particularly true of the northern face of the Ochil Hills in central Scotland, which is characterised by dense networks of connections between lowlands and uplands, local and regional. To trace those connections we integrate the results of walkover survey, aerial archaeology, excavations, documentary analysis and place name analysis, revealing significant continuities and differences in the networks and relationships that have connected this landscape across time and space. Iron Age hillforts used their prominence and monumentality to guide people along very specific routes across the Ochils. Regular seasonal movements of cattle and herders in the medieval and post-medieval periods were closely related to the agriculture and settlement they encountered on the way: this interaction can be clearly seen in the elaborate intertwining of paths, braided cattle tracks, farmsteads and enclosures, most strikingly in the 18th century. Such intricate connections across the landscape are equally keyed in to the specifics of particular locations and to much broader networks and historical change.

Abstract: Settlement is an inevitability of human presence in a landscape; a collection of houses indicates settlement, but so too does a field system - the farmers must live somewhere. Wherever there are people there will be settlement, from large concrete and glass urban centres to the tented impermanence of a nomads' camp. Settlement is a result of the human presence, but remains a sterile idea without some discussion of the community. Certainly settlement can be studied without community, but it remains an abstract assembly of parts unless the people that constructed or occupied it are taken into account. A single settlement is home to numerous communities that continuously form, divide and reform in response to the changing practical and social situations that everyday life presents. Before any settlement is established a series of decisions has to be made with due consideration of an area's topography and natural resources, as well as existing settlements in the landscape and any established social, economic or political systems. Physical considerations such as a settlement's location and extent, or the definition of its boundaries, can be viewed individually, but are more usefully considered in conjunction with one another so that a settlement is treated as a working unit that is part of a wider system, rather than an abstract collection of components. This thesis approaches questions of settlement and community in historic Cyprus - from the late Roman period to the end of the Ottoman period - through a presentation of the experience and results of fieldwork I carried out in 2003. The fieldwork comprised a survey project specifically conceived, planned and executed by myself for my PhD research. It focused on three discrete areas of Cyprus: Akrotiri, a low-lying area salt marsh, batha and cirtus groves in the south of the Island; an area of agriculture and coastal maquis on the west coast, north of Peyia; and the Nikitari village territory, which stretches from the southern margins of the Mesaoria up into the lower reaches of the Troodos mountains. The topographical cross section evident in my chosen areas gave me the opportunity to study the diversity of settlement across most of the range of habitats of the island, from the coast, through the plains, scrub and foot hills, to all but the highest reaches of the Troodos mountains. My experiences in the landscape undoubtedly influenced my observation, recording and interpretation of material evidence in the field, and are a vital, if elusive element of my data. I have exploited their influence to make my presentation the landscape I perceived coherent and vivid. Whilst they could not give me a complete understanding of the experiences of erstwhile occupants of the settlements I have studied, my own experiences do lead me toward it through and appreciation of the landscape and the considerations necessary for anyone living, working or travelling in it. Through my data I examine the location of settlements in the landscape and their changing distribution over time, before endeavouring to identify evidence for community amongst the physical remains in the landscape.