Neolithic rock art in context: Landscape history and the transition to agriculture in Mediterranean Spain

Rock art is one of the most salient features of Neolithic societies in eastern Spain and an explicit form of landscape history. This paper summarizes current debates of Mediterranean rock art chronology and interpretation and explores the contextual differences in two areas of Neolithic settlement with rock art: the Canyoles Valley (Valencia) and the Alcoi Basin (Alicante). Large-scale survey of the Canyoles Valley resulted in a clearer understanding of agricultural land use during the Neolithic that contrasts with evidence from the Alcoi Basin. By analyzing Neolithic rock art in its archaeological context, we discuss the significance and limitations of rock art analysis for understanding and characterizing landscape histories and the transition to agriculture in the region.     

基于人地关系的书法地理学研究

已有的书法地理研究局限于书法现象的地域分异。本文讨论了书法景观的概念、特征及类型,指出书法地理研究应该包括书法作为具有区域分异特征的人文景观元素的研究、书法作为人地关系中景观组成元素的研究以及书法审美作为人地关系的影响物的研究,并进行了详细阐述。书法地理学未来需要通过多学科方法引入进行研究,书法地理学对于旅游、城市规划等多个方面有着潜在应用价值。     

L’Invention du Spectateur au XVIIIe Siècle L’Art Est Usage

18^th century philosophers analyzed art through the aesthetic experience of the audience. By contrast, Adam Smith was interested in the moral judgment that an impartial audience may formulate. How can art and morality, the beautiful and the good, be combined into one analytical framework? Art and morality convey non-transcendental values that are intrinsic to human experience. With the aesthetic experience of the audience, art is used, and ultimately depends on the ways that humans relate to works or art and to the beautiful.     

Biological values of the Nordic cultural landscape: Different perspectives

Intensified land use practices in the Nordic countries are increasing the need for more determined strategies in both natural and cultural conservation. The development of such management strategies requires an inter‐disciplinary approach to overcome the existing boundaries between research disciplines. The paper focuses on certain biological elements which should be taken into account in landscape management. These elements are discussed in different perspectives: temporal, spatial Nordic and European, and the close relationship between biological and historical landscape values is emphasised. Examples of changing evaluations over time and among different groups of people are given. In conclusion the paper stresses the need for a holistic approach to preserve the natural and cultural heritage and secure a long‐term utilisation of the landscape.     

There's more to landscape than meets the eye: towards inclusive landscape assessment in resource and environmental management

Consideration of aesthetic values in resource and environmental management in North America emerged in the 1960s. It soon became enshrined as 'visual resource management', which emphasized a singular visual notion of aesthetics and an expert‐based approach to assessment. This paper challenges this dominant view. An empirical research study is presented in which a broader conceptualization of the landscape aesthetic and a participatory methodology for assessment were developed and used to explore the landscape experiences of inhabitants of the Cariboo region of British Columbia. Themes, categories and ideas of landscape experience grounded in participant perspectives revealed a richness of landscape and can be seen as an opportunity to supplement and enrich current landscape assessment and 'visual' management. More importantly, this conceptual and methodological reorientation in understanding landscape aesthetic sensibilities both reflects and supports the shift in current thinking within resource and environmental management more generally, from technocratic, state‐centred, expert‐based approaches to locally responsive (place‐based), participatory and inclusive approaches for dealing with environmental concerns and resource‐development issues .     

"SCENOPHOBIA", GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE

Recent critiques of the nature–culture dualism, influenced by diverse theoretical stances, have effectively destabilized the “naturalness” of nature and highlighted its pervasive and intricate sociality. Yet the practical, ethical and political effects of this theoretical turn are open to question. In particular, the emphasis on the sociality of nature has not led to reinvigorated environmental or landscape politics. Meanwhile, the need for such politics has if anything increased, as evident when ongoing and, arguably, accelerating landscape transformations are taken into account. These concerns are illustrated in the paper with an example from Iceland. In its uninhabited central highland, serious battles are now being fought over landscape values. Capital and state have joined forces in an investment‐driven scramble for hydropower and geothermal resources to facilitate heavy industry, irrevocably transforming landscapes in the process. Dissonant voices arguing for caution and conservation have been sidelined or silenced by the power(ful) alliance. The author argues for renewed attention to the aesthetic, including the visual, if responsible politics of landscape are to be achieved. Aesthetic appreciation is an important part of the everyday experiences of most people. Yet, enthusiastic as they have been in deconstructing conventional narratives of nature, geographers have been rather timid when it comes to analysing aesthetic values of landscape and their significance, let alone in suggesting progressive landscape politics. A political geography of landscape is needed which takes aesthetics seriously, and which acknowledges the merit of engagement and enchantment.     

Bronze Age Barrows: Factors Influencing Their Survival and Destruction

This paper analyses the influences on the survival of Bronze Age round barrows in two regions of southern Britain, the Upper Thames Valley and the Stonehenge Environs. It is clear that persistent arable farming in the medieval period had a highly destructive effect on these burial mounds. This can be seen despite later agricultural activity. Other factors such as the type of barrows can also be important factors in the survival and destruction of these burial mounds. Nevertheless, when analysing the distribution of these Bronze Age monuments, later historic land use must be considered as well as the contemporary prehistoric landscape.     

Landscaping for a manufacturer: Humphry Repton's commission for Benjamin Gott at Armley in 1809-10

Humphry Repton's design for Benjamin Gott's park at Armley near Leeds is an extraordinary but little known work, featuring woollen mills in its vistas. This paper discusses the complexity and historical significance of this commission and suggests why it is unique. Repton's design is examined in relation to the general structure and temper of English society, to the local social and economic environment and to the values of Repton and Gott. Repton's theory and practice are placed in the context of the debate on beauty and use in an increasingly industrial society. Benjamin Gott's career and outlook as a cloth merchant and manufacturer are considered in the light of the development of the Leeds woollen industry. At Armley, Repton organized pictorially a landscape that included a steam-powered factory, a water-powered scribbling and fulling mill and clothier homesteads. At the rear of the house he composed a vignette of a ruined abbey. Repton's treatment of these features is reflected in comments by local people and by tourists. These comments also express changing attitudes towards beauty and utility. Having compromised many of his aesthetic and moral principles to satisfy Gott, Repton said nothing about the commission in his published works. The subsequent decline of landscape gardening is examined in relation to the changing temper of English society. A discussion of the theoretical implications of this study concludes that more attention should be paid to the material constitution of landscape images.     

Reclaiming Vision: Looking at landscape and the body

This paper responds to feminist critiques of the masculinity of the landscape tradition within geography. It draws upon reassessments of the gaze within film theory, art history and cultural studies as well as within representational practice. It does so in order to reclaim the concept of landscape as a theoretical tool and subject of study for a feminist cultural geography. In theorising a reclamation of looking and landscape through a critical feminist approach, issues of vision and space, gender and representation, politics and pleasure are brought forcefully together through considering images of the male body as landscape by two contemporary women artists. While recognising the politics of representation, the aim is to deconstruct ideas of an unproblematic women's vision and of a singular or essential male or female gaze. Despite the way in which the metaphor of the body/land has been employed to justify both approaches to women and the environment and to legitimate colonisation, this paper suggests that with regard to both the body and landscape we need to look again and reconsider the radical potential of visual pleasure and traditions of visual representation.     

Land tenure and rancho expansion in Alta California, 1784–1846

Popular writers and historians have viewed the rancho as a symbol of the halcyon days of hispanic California and often have overlooked the role of rancho land grants in changing the land tenure system of Alta California during Mexican occupance. This paper views the rancho as an integral part of a land tenure system under which considerable land was granted and examines the patterns of rancho land grants to 1846. The majority of rancho grants were less than six years old at the end of Mexican rule, but they were instrumental in introducing a new land tenure system which imposed a distinct order and design on the Alta California landscape. The land policies of Mexico have been strikingly persistent; rancho boundaries still constitute a prominent part of the modern landscape of California. As a settlement institution, the rancho was more than boundaries delimiting ownership of land, it was the primary means by which resources were distributed, organized and exploited. While the granting of land in Alta California was a distinctive practice, an investigation of how this land system came about and its impact on the land adds to our understanding of tenure practices in general and in particular provides insights into the way in which cultural and economic values are impressed on the land through land ordinances.     

A spatial approach to upland vegetation change and human impact: the Aber Valley,Snowdonia

Abstract

Uplands have long been considered important ‘barometers’ for human-environment relationships. Five pollen sequences from the upper Aber Valley (Snowdonia), across an altitudinal gradient, reveal that human impacts have varied temporally on small spatial scales in the region. Woodland taxa persisted into the later Holocene at lower altitudes and sites located at higher altitude reveal a more open landscape history, possibly as a result of increased exposure limiting tree growth at high elevation. Continuous pastoral human land use is evident in the high upland (400 to >600 m AOD) landscape with evidence of clearing, burning and grazing indicators throughout the records covering the last ～6000 years, with increased activity apparent during the last 2000 years. There is no clear evidence to suggest that climate change (e.g. deteriorating climatic conditions from ～850 BC) resulted in land abandonment and it appears more likely that climatic shifts could have led to changes in human land management. The results demonstrate that pastoral land use varied at different altitudes across the Aber Valley upland, and have highlighted the value and potential of high/fine spatial sampling in providing insights into land use history and the mosaic of habitats that result.     

Assessing the later prehistoric environmental archaeology and landscape development of the Cetina Valley,Croatia

Abstract

This paper describes preliminary work on the environmental and archaeological potential of the Cetina River Valley, Croatia. Two seasons of fieldwork and assessment have suggested that the valley contains a preserved landscape, much of which is waterlogged. It is clear that there is the potential to address many local and regional questions concerning land use, subsistence and environmental change in an area where previously only limited environmental archaeology has been undertaken. One pressing issue is how to prospect for both cultural and environmental archaeological deposits within this regional landscape. This is especially true in cases where little 'base-line data' exists. This paper outlines the current practice and suggests a number of new approaches to prospecting for environmental 'hotspots'.     

贺兰口岩画附近典型危岩体稳定性分析

通过前期现场调查,分析了贺兰口岩画的主要病害,提出岩画附近的危岩体是其中威胁较大的一类地质病害。根据现场勘察将贺兰口岩画附近不同状态的危岩体分为坠落式、滑塌式和倾倒式三类失稳模式。经过室内试验得到了岩石矿物组成、密度、气孔率、吸水率、单轴抗压强度等物理性质,并且利用Hoek-Brown准则、贯通率法以及岩石表面回弹值估算了危岩体与主控结构面的强度参数,例如单轴抗拉和抗压强度、变形模量、内摩擦角和黏聚力,然后利用不同失稳模式的计算方法进行稳定性分析。结果表明部分危岩体处于不稳定状态中,需要进行加固。     

Landlord Villages of Iran as Landscapes of Hierarchy and Control

This paper analyses the walled landlord villages of the Tehran Plain in terms of hierarchy and control, and how these structures are created and expressed through the spatial landscape of the villages. Drawing on original fieldwork, the ways in which landlords used the physicality of the villages to maintain and reinforce control over farmers is explored. We suggest that the “success” or at least longevity of the land tenure system in Iran prior to the later twentieth century can be attributed at least in part to the buildings and spaces of the villages themselves.     

江苏省地理景观与美丽乡村建构研究

乡村审美空间蕴含着内在和深刻的人地关系理念内容,比经济效应有更深的自然情怀,是可持续发展的思想感情基础,也是现代景观规划的重要研究课题。城市化发展过程中自然地理脉络破坏对于乡村景观是致命的。探讨以多尺度层面的地理景观建构乡村审美空间:在区域大尺度范围内设计地理视域观赏空间;在镇域中尺度范围内将生态文明和社会经济发展要求安排在景观空间格局配置中;在乡村小尺度范围内造就素雅含蓄的村落景观。江苏省乡村具有四千年的历史,留下珍贵的人地关系文化遗产和审美烙印。从地理景观形态结构、格局演化进程与机理响应对照乡村审美空间景观,建构和谐安宁的画面境界;最终造就广阔地域的"美丽乡村"。     

Sense Matters: aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef

This paper investigates the use of aesthetic value as a criterion by which the significance of heritage places is assessed. It is argued that current heritage management practice has not engaged with the extensive discourse relating to aesthetics, and therefore confines aesthetics to a particular class and culture, and an inert view of only one of our sensory experiences. Historical records relating to the Great Barrier Reef are used to show how aesthetic appreciation of the area has changed over time.The data suggest that the failure to recognise an aesthetic that is primarily non-visual can lead to changes in landscape and loss of associated value. It also suggests that aesthetic values change rapidly and are influenced by social and technological factors.     

简析刘知白晚年泼墨山水画的主要意象

以传统的笔墨程式来表达山水意象,显然已经不是当下有胆魄、有思想的画家应有的艺术态度和文化担当了,因为中国画在现代文化境遇下一定要寻求自身的突破,无论是观念上还是技法的表现上,特别是面对我国不同境域山水（非传统意义上江南或北方）审美对象时,如何突破原有笔墨语言局限和惯常模式的束缚？如何在新的艺术情境下进行合理的“语言”转换时,有革新的画家更会直面历史与现实,在探索中披荆斩棘、奋然前行。而刘知白先生就是这么一位重要的画家,他晚年的破墨山水画在现当代山水画语言的开拓和图式革新等方面功不可没。而在他晚年的泼墨山水中,除了晴空下正常的山水之外,极具黔地山水特点的雨景、云景、雾景、月景等意象也尤为值得关注,本文正是结合这些意象,进一步探讨刘知白先生泼墨绘画的意象的丰富性和表现力。     

The Sound of Rock Art. The Acoustics of the Rock Art of Southern Andalusia (Spain)

This paper explores the potential of acoustics to interpret the prehistoric rock art of southern Andalusia (Spain). Tests undertaken in two areas, north of the Celemín river and the Bacinete area, will form the basis of our discussion. The results obtained at a selection of rock art sites show that the two key rock art sites, El Tajo de las Figuras and the large shelter at Bacinete, both with the majority of paintings in the earlier Laguna de la Janda style, had good resonance values. In contrast, at most of the other minor sites tested, the values for resonance were negative or insignificant, regardless of whether they were painted in Laguna de la Janda or schematic style. We conclude that the major rock art sites in southern Andalusia were chosen not only for their geological appearance and location in the landscape, but also for their acoustic properties.     

The Conservation Programme of the Côa Valley Archaeological Park: Philosophy,Objectives and Action

Abstract

This paper outlines the methodology for the conservation of Côa Valley rock art, as carried out by the Côa Valley Archaeological Park Conservation Programme. It examines the overall conservation environment that has determined this approach, which aims at an understanding of all the factors affecting the survival of the Côa Valley heritage. We stress that although the Programme sets precise guidelines for the examination and testing of conservation work to mitigate the effects of complex weathering dynamics in action, there are no miraculous solutions to ensure the complete longterm in situ preservation of this World Heritage Site. Despite this geological impossibility, we also emphasize that in a human time scale it makes sense to try to conserve significant heritage (such as the Côa Valley rock art) that expounds and explains our history and ourselves.