On change in the landscape

Abstract

Research in landscape history/archaeology frequently concerns studies of human interventions in the cultural landscape. Decisions are seen to produce interventions that change a setting in some way, and each combination of decision, intervention and result tends, often sub-consciously, to be regarded as an episode of change or a discrete chapter in the evolution of a locality. Research will conventionally culminate in the completion of such an episode. The habit of perceiving landscape change in terms of discrete chapters or episodes distracts attention from the on-going nature of changes that reverberate around a landscape causing adjustments and compensations long after the termination of the initial intervention. The processes of adjustment and compensation endow landscape change with the character of a continuum rather than that of an episode. Examples from a long-term and highly detailed investigation of landscape evolution at Ripley, North Yorkshire, are used to illustrate the need for more refined perspectives on change. These perspectives should embrace continuing consequences of change as well as the initial impact of a decision upon a location.

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