1. Making Human Space: The Archaeology of Trails, Paths, and Roads (original) (raw)
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Movement has played a relevant role in the archaeological analyses of territoriality in the recent years. The incorporation of technologies such as GIS has reinforced that role, since they have made possible to deeply and widely explore the natural constraints for movement. In this paper we develop a procedure to explore the relationship between networks of pathways, settlements and territory, following a “rearward” perspective that tries to approach the processes of historical transformation of pathways. The proposal is applied to an area in Galicia (NW Iberian Peninsula), between the provinces of A Coruña and Pontevedra.
Perceptions of Landscapes of Movement: Phenomenology and the Archaeology of Roman Roads
When attempting to understand the ways that past peoples understood their lives and how this shaped their actions, it is important to consider the relationships that they had with space and landscape. Because landscapes consist of different meanings and values, the relationship between humans and landscapes is dependent on the sociocultural construction of those meanings and values. The road is an important venue for studying perceptions of and movement through space and landscapes because it "embodies issues of ideology, power and identity, and [is] intimately involved in our social constructions of the world" (Witcher 1998). Several works have approached the study of landscape and movement from a phenomenological perspective and address questions concerning agency and decisionmaking, perception and experience, and power and ideology. A phenomenology of roads can illuminate how perceptions of space and landscape are imbued with power and domination. My main concern in this research is to address how power and ideology can be explored in the experience of the traveler of Roman roads. I argue that the phenomenological perspective can illuminate some of the ways that road users in Roman Italy could perceive or be exposed to notions of power and ideology in landscapes of movement. By simply using the road, the traveler, whether he or she was aware of it, encountered objects and landscapes that were imbued with meanings that served to legitimize the hegemony of Rome.
This study was undertaken for a “Prehistoric Trails Continuation Study”, a cultural resource investigation mandated as part of the impact mitigation effort associated with the Ocotillo Express Wind Energy Project (Memorandum of Agreement Section III (2) (c)). As such, it is a distinct study of routes of travel between the desert and mountains, integrating information collected for the previously prepared regional synthesis of the McCain Valley/Jacumba/Ocotillo prehistoric cultural landscape investigations (Figure 1) (Laylander et al. 2014). The boundaries of the larger prehistoric cultural landscape study generally correspond to the boundaries of the Yuha-Jacumba Corridor (YJC) mountain-to-desert landscape historic context study by Noah (2012) which is also the contextual foundation of this project (see Figure 1). The eastern boundary of the Study Area has been established in consultation with the BLM at the 1500-ft. elevation contour. Although that contour is an arbitrary dividing line between the upland and lowland areas, the trails study transcends this boundary to examine routes of travel and cultural interaction between the Peninsular Ranges uplands and Colorado Desert lowlands. As discussed in the research design for this project (Schaefer and Scharlotta 2014), the Yuha-Jacumba Corridor area may be considered a vast prehistoric cultural landscape consisting of numerous inter-related cultural and natural resources. In addition to the regional trails, an interconnected network of trails tied together the various components of the landscape forming a cognitive map for the people who used them (Noah 2012: v). ...movement across the landscape became inscribed in an extensive system of trails that linked settlements, water sources, resource acquisition areas, spiritual and ceremonial places, locations with long distance trade, social, and familial connections, and even hostile territories, one to another (Noah 2012:3). Trail alignments are an important element of the archaeological landscape that indicates how sites and natural features are tied together. In many cases where trails are only partially recorded and are a fuller understanding of their routes will benefit the analysis, some additional field reconnaissance may be undertaken to more accurately and fully trace the trail routes. GIS also will be used to construct least- effort path models of trail routes between major resource areas and occupation hubs, based on hydrology, topography, and gradient which will be compared with actual archaeologically or ethnographically documented routes. This type of analysis will be useful for reconstructing routes that are represented by only fragmented remains and to examine patterns of association with resource collection areas. This study relies heavily on the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software and utilities for the integration of very large archaeological databases with cartographically imaged natural environmental data.