Historic Landscape Characterisation Research Articles

Towards Transdisciplinary Heritage Assessment: An Analysis of the Use of Landscape Study Methods as a Holistic Toolbox for Cultural Site Characterisation in the Spanish Context

This research work arises from the need to design specific techniques for the characterisation of cultural sites. Assuming the increasing complexity of the protection typologies, the expansion of working scales gives thanks to technology and the pursuit of social sustainability objectives. Thus, its main objective is to search for innovative tools that other disciplines can contribute to the work of architects specialising in heritage studies. To this end, the research explores the main methodologies, maps, guides, and registers of landscape and historic landscape characterisation developed in Europe, particularly in Spain, over the last 40 years. Considering this intense and profound evolution of landscape analysis, useful strategies for the assessment of cultural sites from their conception in the 21st century arise. Nevertheless, landscape characterisation methods have been mainly developed and applied by geographers and are absent in many urban and territorial heritage studies. In response, this article proposes a new methodological approach focusing on contextual values to be used in the assessment of architectural heritage at the territorial scale.

Improvements and methodological innovations in the application of the Historic Landscape Characterisation methodology to industrial heritage landscapes

Industrial heritage landscapes today are phenomena of extraordinary complexity, the study of which has been addressed belatedly by the scientific community in general, and to date no methodological trend has given priority to its study and management. There do exist, however, recent methodological approaches, such as Historic Landscape Characterisation, which, in recent years, have addressed the problems and opportunities presented by a wide diversity of landscapes, as is the case of the industrial landscape of Blaenavon. The aim of this article is to critically evaluate the validity of this methodology in terms of responding to the needs that these landscapes present with regard to their study, enhancement and intervention from a heritage and cultural perspective. This study concludes that, while this methodology is a valuable contribution to knowledge of the historical character of these landscapes, the importance of addressing their specific nature makes necessary the development of more solid, methodologically sophisticated approaches that respond to some of the theoretical and methodological weaknesses of this methodology. In this regard, this article advances in the definition of improvements and methodological innovations that attempt to address, among other issues, the complexity of these landscapes in terms of their establishment in the territory, the diversity of spatial and temporal scales in which they participate, their dynamic, highly anthropised character, and their uniqueness as landscapes that have been radically transformed by past industrial activity and which possess enormous cultural and heritage value.

Evolution of a Medieval Castle Town and Its Landscape in the Southwestern Anatolia

ABSTRACTThe objective of this paper is to develop a framework for understanding the archaeological sites composed of the remains and traces of castle towns and evaluating these sites together with their landscapes with a retrospective focus. A case study approach was undertaken with a focus on Kale Tavas (Tabae) in the Southwestern Anatolia. The scope of the Historic Landscape Characterisation was adapted to characterise the remains and traces of the castle town together with its landscape. Site survey at different scales, archive research, and in-depth interviews were used to acquire data. Our results suggest the related conservation boundaries should be determined not only considering the citadel walls but also the natural context that had contributed to the evolution of the castle town. For Kale Tavas, heritage management should be planned by considering the values of the historical landscape and the factors that threaten them, as this study shows.

Modelling the impact of historic landscape change on soil erosion and degradation

International policies and guidelines often highlight the divide between ‘nature’ and ‘heritage’ in landscape management, and the weakness of monodisciplinary approaches. This study argues that historic agricultural practices have played a key role in shaping today’s landscapes, creating a heritage which affords opportunities for more sustainable landscape management. The paper develops a new interdisciplinary approach with particular reference to soil loss and degradation over the long term. It presents innovative methods for assessing and modelling how pre-industrial agricultural features can mitigate soil erosion risk in response to current environmental conditions. Landscape archaeology data presented through Historic Landscape Characterisation are integrated in a GIS-RUSLE model to illustrate the impact of varying historic land-uses on soil erosion. The resulting analyses could be used to inform strategies for sustainable land resource planning.

Areas of Outstanding Nineteenth Century Beauty: Historic landscape characterisation analysis of protected areas in England

Abstract Establishing and expanding protected areas (PAs) has become a key conservation tool in efforts to halt global declines in biodiversity. Given the ubiquity of past and present human influence, PAs inevitably include landscapes and seascapes with varying levels of human modification. We briefly review the geographical biases in England's terrestrial PA network, noting that landscape‐scale PAs (National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) across England disproportionately occupy rugged upland terrain of low agricultural value as a result of the specific history of PA creation, but that this also biases which historic landscapes compose PAs. We explore these biases using Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC). Analysis of HLC revealed that PAs in our focal region in northern England are defined by land‐use changes and landscape reorganisation processes of the 18th and 19th centuries, primarily that of enclosure. The impact this landscape transformation had on biodiversity should now form a priority for further research. This historic landscape influence on PA designation has resulted in PAs being typically owned by large estates with consequences for their biodiversity, management and wider social impact (e.g. greater wealth inequalities). The results highlight that historic landscape perspectives are useful to address conservation priorities and practices related to the protection of biodiversity and could be especially helpful in understanding the interaction between biodiversity protection and historic land‐uses, ownership, management, access and other social impacts. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Integrating spatial and legacy data to understand archaeological sites in their landscape. A case study from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar

AbstractSpatial analysis is paramount for understanding, monitoring, and conserving ancient settlements and cultural landscapes. Advancing remote sensing and prospection techniques are expanding the methodological frame of archaeological settlement analysis by enabling remote, landscape‐scale approaches to mapping and investigation. Whilst particularly effective in arid lands and areas with sparse or open ground cover, such as vegetation and buildings, these approaches remain peripheral in tropical environments because of technical and contextual challenges. In tropical Eastern Africa, for example, scales, resolution and visibility are often compromised by thick vegetation cover, inadequate access to, if not lack of, imagery resources and technologies, and the availability of comparative archaeological data for interpretation. This paper presents the initial results of spatial analysis, using historic landscape characterisation, remote sensing, published and legacy data, and a pilot ground survey to examine the earliest settlement of Zanzibar, Unguja Ukuu. Comparing multiple strands of evidence in a Geographic Information System (GIS), we use each as a test on the others to draw out the strengths and weaknesses of each technique in the context of tropical and coastal Eastern Africa. Drone photogrammetry, geophysical prospection, and ground survey were compared with legacy remote sensing resources and the results of a coring survey conducted across the site during the 1990s into a GIS platform to produce multi‐phase hypothetical maps of the archaeological site in the context of its potential resource landscape. These were then tested against the results of recent excavations. The discussion highlights the challenges and potential of combining these techniques in the context of Eastern Africa and provides some suggested methods for doing so. We show that remote sensing techniques give an insight into current landscapes but are less useful in understanding or modelling how sites would have fitted into their surroundings in the past, when conditions were potentially very different.

The historic character of a depopulating borderland: historic landscape characterisation on the Duero River

International borderland landscapes have a shared history through the movement of ideas, people, culture, and even conflict. Understanding the similarities and nuanced differences of temporal landscape change between frontiers requires approaches that can effectively detail and explain the territorial evolution of both countries. Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) is a valuable methodological tool originally used for landscape studies in the United Kingdom. Its application outside of Britain has been limited. In this pilot study, HLC is used in the Duero River borderland context of Spain and Portugal. It is a rural region with a common history, but it also presents new methodological challenges in the acquisition of source data and the creation of a typology that effectively characterises the region while also recognising the distinctiveness between nations. This research presents the development of the classes and broad types chosen for this analysis and demonstrates their diachronic evolution to the present.

A Study on Historic Landscape Characterization of Ancient Jori Grid Based GIS in Bay Area of Ise

A Study on Historic Landscape Characterization of Ancient Jori Grid Based GIS in Bay Area of Ise

Historic Landscape Characterization in Protected Areas; A Case Study Kazdagı National Park

Landscapes, whose characters are the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors, are dynamic. Proper understanding of today’s landscapes is only possible through the knowledge of their historical dimension, in other words, changes that have occurred in time-slices or time-depth. Historic Landscape Characterization (HLC) is an approach to the management and understanding the present historic environment as a product of past changes and as the basis for future change.HLC was applied to Kazdağı National Park which has very important ecosystems in terms of the future of Turkey especially Asia and Europe. In this research, Kazdağı National Park Historic Landscape Character Types were mapped and relevant attributes were assigned them in 127 years of time depth with ArcGIS 10.1 software. HLC which was completed on the computer has been confirmed by field study and ‘Direction of change’, ‘Rarity’, ‘Vulnerability’ analysis was carried out. Finally, the relevant assessments were made in order to contribute protection, management and planning of National Park.

Mapping the past: Using ethnography and local spatial knowledge to characterize the Duero River borderlands landscape

The Duero River borderland between Spain and Portugal is a region marked by historic geographic isolation and more recently by economic marginalization. Acknowledged for not only its biodiversity, the cultural landscape is also distinguished by its archaeological, historic, and ethnographic heritage. Due to massive socioeconomic outmigration and a prevalent cultural disdain for the countryside, there is a developing disconnection of the collective memory among village residents with the cultural landscape and its agropastoral past. In this study, the principles of the Historic Landscape Characterization methodology and the ideals established by the European Landscape Convention of 2000 are implemented due to their goals of community engagement and awareness raising of the value of cultural landscapes. A strong ethnographic component has been applied to this research whereby residents in interviews characterize the landscape through the recollection of its toponyms and past agropastoral land use. The data acquired from the interviews are input into a GIS as ethnographic layers to complement the empirical landscape analyses. This aggregation of information is placed into a final series of maps for residents and regional authorities to access, use, and learn from the unique landscape history of the region. The value of the analysis is twofold: (1) it contributes to the interpretation of the historical development of the Duero River transborder landscape; and (2) it demonstrates the role of incorporating an ethnographic approach into an archaeological landscape analysis.

The application of Local Indicators for Categorical Data (LICD) to explore spatial dependence in archaeological spaces

Global and local analyses of spatial autocorrelation are commonplace in spatial archaeology. However, they are exclusively focused on continuous numerical parameters, even though logical (presence/absence) and categorical parameters are equally frequent in archaeological research. Global tests of spatial dependence for categorical data are routinely used in other fields, and local versions of these tests (known as LICD) have recently been developed. This paper provides a detailed description of such methods, and presents the first adaptation and application of LICD to archaeological data. Different LICD versions have been tested on two case-studies: (a) an archaeological grid, with object presence or absence recorded for each cell; (b) Historic Landscape Characterisation, with the origin of character types (mediaeval, post-mediaeval or modern) recorded for each region. These examples seek to showcase and promote the use of LICD in landscape and intra-site archaeology.

‘Hidden Landscape Characterisation’: Some Thoughts on the Relationship of HLC to Archaeological Data

ABSTRACT In 2009 the ninth annual English Heritage Characterisation Seminar addressed the subject of ‘Hiddenscapes’, with the aim of looking at how to apply an Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) approach to the less accessible archaeological layers of the historic landscape. This reflected the growing availability of large-scale digital datasets from aerial investigation and mapping, geophysics and excavation, alongside the recognition that too often the archaeological resource was treated as a series of discrete sites. Over a decade on from that seminar, however, archaeologists studying the prehistoric and Roman periods in England still make relatively little use of characterisation. At the same time, various academic projects have analysed large-scale archaeological data for these periods in other ways. It is therefore timely to reconsider the potential contribution of the HLC approach to the development of methods of characterising the buried archaeological landscape. This article considers the relationship between HLC and archaeological data and outlines a possible approach to mapping the character of the archaeological record.

Simulating Change in Cultural Landscapes: The Integration of Historic Landscape Characterisation and Computer Modelling

ABSTRACT More than 80 per cent of the world's landscapes are influenced significantly by human activities, and current land-use and land cover trends are likely to increase the rate of landscape change at a significant rate in the near future. To manage and guide landscape change, and an advocacy of positive landscape change – rather than attempts to stop change as in traditional preservationist approaches – requires the identification of threats and opportunities. Tools to do this will need to be based on well-investigated evidence for the long-term past evolution of landscapes and the understanding of possible future scenarios for change. Historic landscape characterisation (HLC) is a GIS-based method employed to interpret and study landscapes with a particular focus on representing and mapping the aspects of landscape character which result from past cultural processes. This paper introduces a new protocol which uses HLC data to model future landscape evolution and to simulate scenarios of landscape change. It describes a computer-based simulation framework derived from landscape ecology and used with HLC datasets during research on a region in southern Turkey. Such integrated modelling protocols have the potential to assist landscape planners to develop holistic and informative approaches to managing landscape change.

Historic Landscape Characterisation: Technical Approaches Beyond Theory

ABSTRACT This paper describes how Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) projects are implemented using Geographical Information Systems. Today, HLCs are still often considered simple thematic maps to visualise landscape histories, but they are more than that – spatial databases that serve more than one purpose and could be integrated in planning processes with different types of aims. By explaining how historic characterisation is carried out in GIS environments and how future methodological developments can unlock HLC’s potential in spatial analysis, this paper seeks to enhance the integration of HLC in various spatially driven projects and processes. While exploring the technical aspects of HLC a further purpose of the paper is to reach out towards other approaches (e.g. Landscape Character Assessment) to be better equipped in finding solutions to complement them.

Where Next for Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC)?

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a special issue on Historic Landscape Characterisation. It places in its wider context the development of HLC from the 1990s to the present, beginning with unpicking the implications for understanding and practice inherent in the meanings of the three constituent terms, historic (or historical), landscape and characterisation. The discussion includes consideration of society’s changing approaches to understanding, presenting and managing landscape and place, and especially their comprehensively historical aspects. It also introduces the main trends that seem likely to influence the continued development of HLC and its application by decision makers.

Back to the Beginning, and into the Future: Historic Landscape Characterisation, a Review from Cornwall

ABSTRACT From the distance in time of twenty-five years since its initial development, this paper reviews Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) and especially the approaches that determined its form when pioneered in Cornwall, its subsequent development and application, and its continued relevance, usefulness and value. It explores likely future developments and applications.

Identifying Shan‐Shui characteristics for national landscape heritage: Reconciling western and Chinese landscape characterisation from a trans‐cultural perspective

The recognition of landscape as cultural heritage has increasingly brought together work on landscape and heritage in recent years. In a practical sense, this has been recognised through effective landscape management strategies that have sought to encompass wider information on the historic environment and its associated values. Across Europe in recent years, effective assessment and management of the historic environment have developed through a conversation around such schemes as landscape character assessment (LCA) and historic landscape characterisation (HLC). Further work is required, however, in order to extend this conversation further in trans‐cultural contexts. This paper explores the possibilities of developing such a conversation through geographic information system (GIS) modelling that draws on both western LCA/HLC perspectives and Chinese Shan‐Shui philosophies. We believe that a creative conversation between western and Chinese landscape heritage philosophies might be able to allow landscape characterisation approaches that use GIS methodologies to attain a greater depth of heritage understanding within their operation. Through trans‐cultural exchange, therefore, this research explores how a novel and indigenous language (of Shan‐Shui characterisation) might enliven western LCA, thus providing a productive conversation between different disciplines, philosophies, and culture cognitions.

Changes and continuities in a Mediterranean landscape: a new interdisciplinary approach to understanding historic character in western Catalonia

To understand why historic landscapes changed in the past researchers need to identify when and where changes took place, but in rural landscapes, the origins and development of many historic elements including field systems, roads, terraces and other earthworks remain poorly understood. This paper outlines a practical interdisciplinary method using GIS-based historic landscape characterisation (HLC) to integrate data from different sources and model how historic character varies in space. It pilots an innovative approach using luminescence profiling and dating that can underpin the HLC with significantly improved knowledge of historic processes of change. We focus on four case studies of terraced agricultural landscapes in western Catalonia and demonstrate for the first time that existing terrace systems often have medieval or early modern origins.

Managing the future of the past: images of Exmoor landscape heritage

Tarr Steps is a footbridge across a river but it also bridges two temporal landscapes: the present and the ‘deep past’. Although the origins of the site are uncertain, the bridge is often represented as objectively authentic and ‘ancient’. The historicity of this claim is challenged by secondary production of the site. We unpack the discursive construction of the bridge and argue that Tarr Steps’ connection to the deep past is a cultural imaginary based on a selective interpretation of its morphology. This imaginary connection authenticates representation of the site as resembling the origin of a sequence of cultural evolution in Britain. We explore implications of this in relation to three metaphors of landscape used in the cultural heritage management tool called Historic Landscape Characterisation. In so doing, we raise questions about the future of the past, specifically in terms of the conceptualisation of temporality, authenticity and the politics of representation.

Parkwood Springs – A fringe in time: Temporality and heritage in an urban fringe landscape

This paper aims to advance the theory and practice of landscape heritage planning, design and management, focusing especially on the question: what are the relationships between landscape narratives – the ways in which we tell the story of a landscape – and landscape heritage outcomes (landscape practice – planning, design, management – based on particular readings of the past)? The paper explores this question through a critical examination of three different narrative accounts of Parkwood Springs, an urban waste site in the city of Sheffield, UK: a conventional history, a personal experiential account, and an analysis based on the Sheffield Historic Landscape Characterisation. The critique is informed by a cross-disciplinary theoretical discussion of the ways time is conceptualized and presented in narrative, and how these conceptualizations influence future landscapes.