Beyond Economy: Seed Analysis in Landscape Archaeology

Abstract

Forest, fi eld, pasture, moor, hedgerow, garden, plantation, and bog-all are landscape elements partially defi ned on the basis of the plants growing there; all have a specifi c set of environmental, ecological, and structural characteristics; all have a color, texture, and shape; all are living and changing elements of the material world in which human experience is situated; all dominate the visible form of land on which they are found; and several (for example, plantation, forest, garden, fi eld, pasture) carry specific economic, social, and political meanings, depending on historical and geographical context. Like it or not, plants are key landscape elements, being directly, or through the land on which they grow, valuable, useful, negotiable, and politically active economic and social resources. Plants also may carry symbolic as well as use values, (for example, the four-leaf clover as a sign of good luck); sometimes plants even stand as symbols of cosmology or identity, appearing as actors in creation beliefs (for instance, the Grass Seed Dreaming of Aboriginal peoples in central Australia; cf. David 2002: 63) and being used in the construction of group identity (for example, the Scottish thistle; the Irish shamrock; the Australian waratah).