Maritime Culture in the Netherlands: accessing the late medieval maritime cultural landscapes of the north‐eastern Zuiderzee

This paper examines the theory and practice of the maritime cultural landscape in general, and projects the theoretical concepts and aspects involved on the highly dynamic late medieval north‐eastern Zuiderzee region in the Netherlands. The cultivation of land and marine erosion (floods and rising sea level) are considered as the main factors that caused the transformation of the physical landscape of this region from peatlands with freshwater basins into a tidal lagoon. As a consequence, multiple settlements drowned, large areas of land submerged, and culture and the landscape gradually became more maritime, giving the research area a cultural identity and dimension.     

Seal on Land, Elk at Sea: Notes on and Applications of the Ritual Landscape at the Seaboard

Ritual landscapes at sea are marked in the cognitive world of coastal people by a primary antagonism between sea and land. This contrast is negotiated by liminal 'foreign' agents, selected for their symbolic adherence to either part. The primary source of maritime culture is fishing as a survival of past hunter-gatherer societies. Forms of religious or magical management of this contrast are manifold, from recent superstitious magic to powerful symbols in ancient worship, objects, art, architecture and cult. Also described are ways of using the sea on land as a magic metaphor and a fundamental point of reference. Related dichotomies and ways of negotiating them, such as the liminal agent, exist elsewhere in the cognitive world of pre-industrial societies, so these ideas could have applications in archaeology.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

The abandoned seafarer: Networks of care and capture in the global shipping economy

ABSTRACT

Despite its importance, life at sea, as well as the labour of those who toil in these waters, often remains murky to those on land. Based on ethnographic research onboard cargo ships and ashore at Mission to Seafarers (MtS) and other seafarer clubs this essay emphasizes the centrality of care and capture in shaping the global shipping economy. Drawing insights from an anthropological archive of capture, this essay highlight the multi-faceted ways in which care and capture define maritime labour on land and sea and where the ultimate form of captivity is abandonment.     

Opportunistic Ports and Spaces of Exchange in Late Roman Cyprus

Ports served not only as interfaces between land and sea, but as central gathering spaces for economic and cultural exchange. Drawing on case studies from the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, this paper situates opportunistic ports lacking built facilities within a broader socioeconomic context of diverse maritime communications, expanding rural settlement, and increased agricultural productivity during late antiquity. Though simple, these sites served as active agents in the development of new maritime networks as well as local markets throughout their hinterlands, adding flexibility and dynamism to the economic ties between city, countryside, and the wider late Roman world.     

Seafaring as social action

This paper builds upon traditional investigations of maritime activities, particularly seafaring itself, to study the social relationships between people and the sea as well as the technology, necessary knowledge and skills that are implicated. The research is based upon evidence of seafaring drawn from the circulation of obsidian from the island of Lipari around the central Mediterranean throughout the Neolithic c.6500–3500 BC. It focuses upon journeys across the Adriatic, identifying the importance of travel in the creation of social alliance and identity, shedding light upon relationships and practices that are generally invisible without proper consideration of maritime activity. The implications of ongoing maritime activity in the region reflect upon Neolithic activities and temporalities which are outside the sphere of settlement specific landscapes, hitherto the sole focus of the majority of Italian Neolithic research.     

Notes from Mount Desert Island: Interviewing Maine Fishermen to Find Archaeological Sites

In an attempt to discover submerged archaeological sites, the author interviewed commercial fishermen, divers, and others with intimate knowledge of the Maine coast between Stonington and Prospect Harbor. Investigators compiled information from several small maritime communities, focusing on the portions of their populations in contact with the sea. A wealth of data regarding the location of infrastructure, wrecks, and inundated prehistoric sites was gathered between 2006 and 2011. Patterns emerge when the findings are compared to the historical record, to commercial fishing zones, or to known archaeological sites. The results of the survey will be discussed, as well as the efficacy of the project, and the sometimes surprising relationship between the data and the physical and cultural landscapes of the area.     

Cultural landscape protection in Australia: The Wingecarribee Shire study

Abstract

The concept of cultural landscapes as remarkable windows onto the past, and rich historical documents that can be read has gained increasingly wide acceptance in Australia over the past few years. Allied to this, and informing it. is the way in which landscape as a cultural construct plays a major role in attachment to place and sense of Australianness. The understanding of cultural landscapes as a setting where human history is on display is a community movement as well as a professional one. This paper reviews one particular study which focused on heritage evaluation of an historic rural landscape and moves for its protection.     

Urban Regeneration/Heritage Tourism Endeavours: The Case of Salt,Jordan ‘Local Actors,International Donors,and the State’

The paper explores some of the key developments in maritime heritage in Britain in recent years and reflects upon the changes that have taken place, particularly in the ways in which maritime history has been defined. It examines some of the work of major heritage theorists and the relevance of their ideas for the expansion and ‘reinvention’ of maritime heritage. In particular, it seeks to evaluate the significance of perceived shifts towards a more accessible and nostalgic form of cultural representation. For maritime heritage, it is suggested that this approach may pose difficulties in that it can serve to promote a romanticised and sometimes uncritical perspective of British associations with the sea.     

A history of changing aesthetic values in the Yarra Valley landscape,Victoria

Aesthetic responses to landscape may be emotional, sensory, or experiential, or a combination; it is a difficult value to identify and assess. This paper considers changing perceptions of the aesthetic values of the Yarra Valley landscape using a heritage methodology that involves examining artistic, creative, and published sources accounting for a lengthy period of changing land use. Scenic quality mapping, where available, is used as a support, and extensive reference is made to Australian impressionist art. Artworks for Yarra Valley landscapes may be considered as being among the cultural heritage indicators of significance and there is a new aesthetic of land art in private venues for the visiting public. The paper also illustrates how aesthetic values have been more broadly recognised in the post‐World War II era and become the domain of planning authorities as well as artists. It is for regional planners to be aware of and maintain these aesthetic values in the landscape.     

Detecting Cultural Remains in Boreal Forests in Sweden Using Airborne Laser Scanning Data of Different Resolutions

ABSTRACT

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is increasingly being used to detect cultural remains in forest landscapes. Boreal forests are challenging, however, since most ancient land use was carried out without major permanent ground disturbances. If this challenge can be met, there is a large potential for surveys through existing nation-wide laser-scanning programs, although their resolutions tend to be low. In this study, we compare the performance of low-resolution (LR) and high-resolution (HR) ALS data in the Krycklan catchment in northern Sweden, an area where ancient land use was small-scale and diverse. About three times as many cultural remains were detected in the HR data set, but the LR set was satisfactory for distinct structures. We analyze how LR data sets can be enhanced at ground-point classification and terrain-model generation and conclude that ALS data have a large potential for the detection and protection of cultural remains in the boreal forest.     

试论清代的漕粮海运文化

晚清漕运的主体方式是海运,在6口余年的海运过程中,逐渐形成了以祭祀海神、修建会馆和撰写诗歌为特色的海运文化。这一独特文化现象的出现,既是清代漕粮海运的重要组成部分,也是当时社会风尚的合理延伸。     

Gravestones and Monuments in the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Research Potential and Preliminary Interpretations

Thousands of memorials around the world commemorate maritime disasters and death. In addition to commemoration, memorials provide insight into the conceptual landscape of maritime peoples. Types of maritime memorials, locations where they can be found, and the limitations of memorials as archaeological artefacts are discussed. Data from 18th- and 19th-century English and American maritime memorials are used to make preliminary interpretations regarding Anglo-American maritime beliefs. Based on this I argue that memorials are a valuable source of data for maritime cultural landscape studies, particularly for what they reveal about maritime belief systems.
© 2006 The Author     

Carl Schmitt on land and sea

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), one of the leading conservative legal thinkers of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, is best known today for his critique of liberalism. Between the late 1930s and mid-1950s, Schmitt wrote numerous articles and two books addressing the mythical and geopolitical significance of land and sea. In recent years, these texts have begun to attract attention from historians as well as theorists. This article reconstructs the origins of Schmitt's theories about land and sea, and shows how they developed in the context of his efforts to delegitimize the British Empire and justify the persecution of Jews. It also explains how Schmitt selectively misread the history of maritime law in order to critique the ‘freedom of the seas.’ Finally, it reveals that the meaning Schmitt ascribed to ‘the opposition of the elements of land and sea’ changed dramatically to suit his political needs. For all their evocative qualities and insights, Schmitt's texts on land and sea do not constitute a coherent theory, but rather a shifting field of polemical positions in search of theoretical support.     

Walking the Land: Aboriginal Trails,Cultural Landscapes,and Archaeological Studies for Impact Assessment

Aboriginal people have occupied northern Alberta since the end of the last ice age. For most of that time they travelled across the land by foot, producing complex networks of trails, many of which may have great antiquity. Aboriginal people also modified the landscape extensively by the use of controlled burning. Lastly, they are immersed in and “read” the land as places with multiple cultural meanings, which in turn helped shape their cultures and identities. Together, these elements indicate the existence of a series of overlapping cultural landscapes for which the cross-country trails and waterways provide the grid. This article addresses the importance of traditional trails for identifying the cultural landscapes of northeastern Alberta and points to the rapid disappearance today of knowledge about such trails. It considers how archaeological investigations done in Alberta for Impact Assessment purposes fail to consider either trails or cultural landscapes in their surveys or to consult with Aboriginal people. As a result, government Review Panels making recommendations for whether or not an industrial project should be approved are basing their findings on incomplete information about Aboriginal land uses and meanings.     

From ‘Landsman’ to ‘Seaman’? Colonial discipline,organisation and resistance in the Royal Indian Navy, 1946

In February 1946, 20,000 sailors of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutinied over a number of grievances, from the poor quality of their food to demands for an independent India. Drawing on archival research in the UK and India, this paper uses this event, together with an examination of life in the RIN more generally, to explore how colonial discipline was organised and resisted in specifically maritime ways. By examining the practices and organisational structures of the RIN which attempted to discipline sailors, and in turn how these were resisted and negotiated, it is argued that the spatial politics of life in the Navy created distinctly maritime social and cultural relations. These maritime, naval understandings of space and place add to our understandings of the ways in which colonialism worked in practice. The paper therefore not only adds to work about colonialism's attempts to discipline and order its subjects but also contributes to debates on the geographies of the sea.     

豫东平原古城淮阳城湖湿地历史景观探析--兼论科罗纳(CORONA)影像资料的解读与运用

本文以河南淮阳古城城湖为例,探讨历史时期华北平原城市湖塘湿地的自然生态与人文景观。适应于华北平原水资源时空分布不均、旱涝灾害易发的水环境,传统城市中以雨洪为主要水源的湖塘水体,是具有较大幅度水位变化、旱涝交替的湿地景观。不仅为多种动植物提供了栖息地,也与城市居民的生产生活建立了广泛而紧密的联系,从文化休闲、日常用水,到适应湿地水域内不同水土条件及其旱涝变化的农业生产和土地利用,塑造了独特的文化景观,对当代华北平原城市的水景观建设具有参照意义。拍摄于1960-1972年间的科罗纳卫星影像,以高分辨率、多时相等特点,能够展示湿地景观的旱涝变化和土地利用的适应性变化,为研究历史时期的湿地景观提供了重要的图像资料。     

Ways of Belonging: Reconciliation and Adelaide's Public Space Indigenous Cultural Markers

As an arguably ‘post colonial’ society, Australia is evolving its particular identity and sense of self, but reconciliation with its Indigenous peoples remains a significant political and cultural issue. Social inclusion or marginalisation is reflected in the construct of the civic landscape and this paper traces and contextualises public space Indigenous representation or ‘cultural markers’, since the 1960s in Adelaide, South Australia, the Kaurna people's land. This paper identifies social phases and time periods in the evolution of the ways in which Indigenous people and their culture have been included in the city's public space. Inclusion of Indigenous peoples in civic landscapes contributes not only to their spiritual and cultural renewal and contemporary identity, but also to the whole community's sense of self and to the process of reconciliation. This has the potential to provide a gateway to a different way of understanding place which includes an Indigenous perspective and could, symbolically, contribute to the decolonisation of Indigenous people. An inter‐related issue for the colonising culture is reconciliation with the Indigenous nature of the land, in the sense of an intimate sense of belonging and connectedness of spirit through an understanding of Indigenous cultural landscapes, an issue which this paper explores. The paper also sets out suggestions for the facilitation of further Indigenous inclusion and of re‐imagining ways of representation.     

Medieval Shipwrecks from North Norway and their Contribution to Understanding Maritime Interaction and Trade

This article presents the remains of three medieval ships from North Norway. The sites are clustered near the Arctic Circle, two from the islands of Husøy (Træna) and Lovund in the Helgeland region, and a potential third wreck from the small lake Fiskvågvatn in Saltdal. Available information from the wrecks is presented to provide a basis for assessing their cultural contexts and relevance to medieval maritime activities, the dried‐cod (stockfish) trade in particular. The circumstances surrounding their discovery and documentation also offer insights into the history of cultural heritage management and role of community engagement in northern Norwegian shipwreck archaeology.     

Maritime Durées: Long-Term Structures in a Coastal Landscape

The interaction between humans and the maritime coastal landscape must be one of the central theoretical questions for maritime archaeology. How should an academic discipline, which is defined by its studies in a certain physical milieu, avoid the trap of environmental determinism and still be able to argue for the special influence of the maritime factor? And how should this long-term relation to the sea be interpreted and described? In this article, based mainly on material from the central Swedish Baltic Sea coast, three examples of long-term structures regarding the relationship between people and the sea are discussed. The structures, here called “maritime durees”, which almost all coastal habitants in the analyzed area seem to have had in common are linked to: exploitation of marine resources, communication over water and the mental presence of the sea. In conclusion the actual meaning of these long-term structures for everyday life and for cultural and social change are discussed in comparison to more short term structures: the changing historical circumstances and possibilities for people to choose different strategies.     

关注遗产保护的新动向:文化景观

文化景观这一概念在景观生态学、文化地理学、人类生态学等学科中历史悠久,并被广泛应用。作为世界遗产体系中的文化景观,是人与自然相互作用的杰作,在二十世纪九十年代刚刚出现,但它已经成为遗产保护和利用领域中的热点。文化景观概念可以更好地理解遗产保护中的真实性和完整性原则,其重点在于保护人与自然互动的过程和产物,涉及到空间过程与土地利用、地形、水文、植被、交通、细部结构与装饰、健康与环境等方面。在中国倡导文化景观这一概念对于整个遗产的保护、生态的维系、文化的延续、旅游的开发、经济的发展都具有十分重要的作用。