Defining a contemporary landscape approach: concluding thoughts

Abstract

In the above papers, two of the participants begin by quoting the cultural geographer Carl Sauer. From my perspective, the recognition given to Sauer by DUNNING and his colleagues as well as GARTNER is timely and important, since it reminds us that the long-term interplay between humans and their environments has long been a central concern in geography as well as archaeology. My comments here endeavour to reflect upon and address that general theme towards framing a coherent landscape approach in archaeology. In so doing, space does not also allow for a detailed commentary on each of the articles that compose this section. For my own principal study region (Oaxaca, Mexico], 29 years have passed since Ronald Spores’ (1969) seminal publication in which he outlined the prehispanic construction of fama-bordo agricultural systems in the Mixteca Alta in the Oaxaca highlands. The use of the lama-bordos required intentional stimulation of erosion. Stone and rubble dikes were constructed and designed to trap water and eroding soils as they descended the natural drainage channels that extended from mountains to the valley floor during heavy summer rains. These stone dikes were 1 to 4 m high and could be tens (even hundreds) of metres long. Following several years of runoff, the lama-bordo terrace systems accumulated sufficient soil to form level and rather fertile plots that returned significant yields. Spores also noted that the lamabordo systems appear to have remained productive during the later part of the prehispanic sequence, as long as the terrace walls were kept in place and carefully maintained. However, with post-contact demographic collapse and changes in tribute patterns, work and land-use patterns were disrupted. The continual labour necessary to rebuild and maintain these agrarian features was lost and massive unchecked erosion precipitated, which was hastened by grazing and the intentional removal of the natural vegetation. The heavy erosion that today still scars the Nochixtlhn Valley and other parts of the Mixteca Alta was the consequence. In many senses, Spores’ (1969) classic arti