Palimpsest Landscapes Research Articles

Staying local – experiencing local landscapes and the potential of hidden stories

ABSTRACT This article considers some of the opportunities increased visitation to recreational areas presents in terms of engaging residents and visitors with local heritage in the form of Historic Environment Records (HERs). There are countless potential ‘hidden stories’ related to cultural heritage sites and artefacts within palimpsest landscapes. These sites and artefacts present opportunities for alternative narratives of place to be negotiated, creating links to the past in the present, and between the exotic and the familiar. The changing approach to landscape practices resulting from COVID-19 restrictions presents new opportunities to engage people with these hidden stories, linking places near with far-off lands across time and space. It also encourages new connections with place that have the potential to (co-)create new narratives; increasing engagement, as well as correlating with pressing issues centred around the climate crisis and the urgent need to reduce travel to achieve Net Zero targets.

Mapping landscape evolution in 3D: Climate change, natural hazard and human settlements across the 1618 Piuro landslide in the Italian Central Alps

AbstractNatural and anthropogenic mountain landscapes coevolve responding on different temporal scales to climate changes and geodynamics by a series of increments that cause the dynamic association of morphological stabilization surfaces, stratigraphic units and landforms. Understanding the incremental history of palimpsest landscapes helps to recognize and forecast the effects of climate change on the sensitive mountain environments, contributes to archaeological and historical reconstruction and supports management strategies for natural risks prevention and mitigation. The Italian Bregaglia Valley provides an excellent site to unravel the recent/historical increments of evolution of landforms and human settlement, permitting to map the paleo‐digital terrain models (DTMs) corresponding to the relevant landscape turning points. After the last de‐glaciation, two large‐scale landslides reshaped the valley floor, both predisposed by deep‐seated gravitational slope deformations and one surely triggered by intense rainfalls. The most recent and impacting event buried in 1618 the rich border town of Piuro, the ancient one occurred in the same area at least 1.5 ka before. Combining stratigraphic, geomorphological, topographic, archaeological and historical data, we drew the paleo‐DTMs of the pre‐ and post‐1618 settings of Piuro, sketching the landscape evolution. Since two millennia, human settlements took advantage of the decadal to secular most stable surfaces, represented by the inactive lobes of debris‐flow fans, the highest trunk river terraces and the top of humps formed by the ancient landslide body in the valley centre. Stratigraphic relationships, archaeological findings and age determinations show that both landslides diverted the trunk river and covered the existing fan lobes. On a secular timescale, fan progradation and trunk river terracing buried and reworked both the landslide bodies. The paleo‐DTMs show their original areal extent and permit to compute their volume and to sketch the setting of the buried Piuro settlements, drawing the changes of the Mera trunk river course and the chronology of activity of the lateral debris‐flow fan lobes.

Mapping human mobility and analyzing spatial memory: palimpsest landscapes of movement in the Gobi-Altai Mountains, Mongolia

The significance of local spatial choices and memory and their impact on mobility networks is scarcely recognised in Mongolian archaeology. Here, we present a mapping strategy aimed at disentangling the landscapes of movement and investigating the materiality that accumulated in the palimpsest of the Ikh Bogd Uul Mountain (Bayankhongor, Mongolia).Based on an integrated and diachronic approach, our analysis encompasses a variety of strategies and sources: satellite imagery and historical cartography, a rescaling of the research area and path-centered fieldwork, which we conceptualize as 'linear’ survey. We document Late Prehistoric mounds as well as ‘modern’ springs, pastoral campsites, and paths. They are interpreted as landscape-objects associated with persistent mobility patterns and the construction of local knowledge and identity – in the sense of a nutag or homeland.This study thus contributes to expanding the archaeological information available for a remote and scarcely investigated area and enriching the archaeological approach to a complex and highly mobile context over time. It also offers new insights into how ancient mobility contributed to shaping the local landscapes of movement, both in terms of seasonal pastoral shifts and long-distance networks in the Mongolian and Central Eurasian Late Prehistory and afterwards.

Lemon Valley, St Helena: an East India Company and British Colonial landscape in the South Atlantic

SUMMARY This article presents the results of an historical and archaeological survey of Lemon Valley, in the South Atlantic island of St Helena. The valley was periodically used by 16th-century mariners during the early years of the Age of Discovery and permanently settled by the English East India Company from the 1660s. The survey reveals a palimpsest landscape which preserves extensive military and civilian ‘plantation’ remains. Together, these provide a rare insight into the character and evolution of the English settlement of the island from the late 17th century, through to the abandonment of the valley in the mid-20th century.

Change in the Dispersed Territory: (Proto)Types for a New Urban Paradigm

Dispersed territories such as Flanders (Belgium) have been amongst others described as layered territories, as a palimpsest landscape, or as both a selective and a-selective infill of the territory. In the constant re-editing and change of this territory, historical remnants remain visible and often form a departing point for further adaptations and changes. One of these remnants, the moated farmstead, has evolved from a historical (proto)type to a common typology in South-West Flanders and enabled inhabiting the territory dispersedly. Moated farmsteads are typically composed of a series of different buildings and are surrounded by an artificial water body. The moat formed the central point of a larger land management system. Nowadays, many of these farmsteads still exist, however, over time they lost their original purpose and transformed into a variety of uses. The design of a prototype, i.e., a first model later evolving into a type, a recurring model, as an architectural object can simultaneously relate to a larger theoretical reflection on the scale of the territory. Subsequently, these farmsteads lead to the question: What (proto)types have been developed to demonstrate the uniqueness of the relation between the land/labour/living in a dispersed territory? Can we re-interpret the moated farmstead as a new (proto)type to establish a more sustainable way of urbanising the countryside in a dispersed context? Therefore, this article first documents the historical figure of the moated farmstead as an architectural object, socio-economic and political organisation, and ecological land management, and documents its change throughout time. Then, a reflection is built on how, at the time of their emergence, these moated farmsteads were an exponent of a sustainable and ground-breaking type that enabled a dispersed settlement pattern. Finally, the potential of the farmstead as a new prototype for a twenty-first-century dispersed territory is discussed.

Multi-millennial human impacts and climate change during the Maya early Anthropocene: implications on hydro-sedimentary dynamics and socio-environmental trajectories (Naachtun, Guatemala)

During the Maya early Anthropocene (2000 BCE – 1000 CE) in Mesoamerica, socio-environmental interactions contributed to the rise and decline of the ancient Maya civilisation. At the scale of the exploitation territories of the Maya cities, the temporal variations of hydrological and sedimentary dynamics in response to anthropogenic and climate drivers are still poorly known. This constrains diachronic analyses of socio-ecosystems and, more particularly, of water and soil resources in the hinterlands. This manuscript analyses and presents a regional comparison of the dynamics of one of the most transformed hydrosystems and morpho-sedimentary systems by the societies of the Southern Maya Lowlands (SMLs), during the second half of the Holocene. It focuses on the lake basin of the polje named El Infierno bajo and its watershed, which was the main water storage area for the Maya city of Naachtun – a large regional capital between 150 and 950 CE –, and which contains many remains of hydraulic and agrarian structures. This integrated palaeolimnological, geoarchaeological and hydrological approach, based on the analyses of morpho-sedimentary archives, LiDAR altimetry data and hydrological data, resulted in the construction of hydro-sedimentary baselines (pre- syn- and post-ancient Maya anthropogenic impacts). Currently, the intermittent lake (civale) of this bajo responds to strong seasonal and interannual hydrological variabilities, under climate control. During the past 5500 years, hydro-sedimentary fluctuations were marked by the alternation of seven main hydrological periods (HP), characterised by high and low lake levels (alternately perennial, intermittent and dry lake) and six main erosion and sediment transfer periods (ESTP), marked by strong and low alluvial and colluvial detrital inputs in the lowlands. Anthropogenic and climate forcings have independently or jointly controlled the hydrologic and sedimentary budgets of the lake basin. Lithofacies, depositional processes, accumulation rates and drivers of the anthropogenic detrital inputs – the so-called “Maya clays” –, are analysed and quantified from ∼1500 BCE to ∼1150 CE. It thus reveals one of the longest periods of occupation and exploitation of natural resources of the SMLs, for over 2500 years during the Preclassic, Classic and Post-classic Maya periods. The hydro-sedimentary dynamics in the bajos of the SMLs Elevated Interior Region (EIR), such as El Infierno, enabled the long-term exploitation of water and soil resources for agrarian purposes, thanks to the construction of hydraulic and agrarian palimpsest landscapes shaped by the socio-ecosystems.

How Landscapes Remember

This paper considers the possibility that as subject or agent, the landscape might have the potential to contain, store or transmit memories of their past, which are engaged experientially as uncanny. In a simple sense it asks why there are some landscapes – or landscape features – that are regarded as spiritually animated by different social groups, at different times. The paper focuses on the Neolithic temple site of Borġ-in-Nadur, in Southern Malta, which as well as having been a site of prehistoric ritual activity has more recently been the site of a significant devotion to the Virgin Mary, who graced the site with regular apparitions, and a focus for national and transnational Goddess pilgrimage. The paper suggests that sites such as Borġ-in-Nadur can be seen as palimpsest landscapes, in which memory is layered such that experiential engagements with them draw the past in to the present, and forwards into the future. The paper examines the intertwining of prehistoric, Catholic and Neo-pagan engagements with Borġ-in-Nadur, extending Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux de memoire (sites of memory) to encompass the milieux de memoire, or memorial environments, which are themselves also context of, and for, the uncanny.

Morphostructural evidence of Late Quaternary tectonics at the Po Plain-Northern Apennines border (Lombardy, Italy)

The landscape of foreland basins adjacent to active mountain ranges evolves under the control of basinward tectonic propagation of the structural fronts, in competition with climate dynamics. The resulting palimpsest landscapes record the sequence of geomorphic evolutionary steps, and the spatial-temporal relations between the active geological processes. However, a precise evolutionary sequence is hard to decipher from low-relief settings, like the wide alluvial plains worldwide. About these topics we investigate the sequence of tectonic- and climate-driven processes which shaped the palimpsest landscape of a large Quaternary foreland basin, the Po Plain in Northern Italy. Above the average glacio-fluvial and alluvial plain of the basin, Late Quaternary intra-basin reliefs emerge, owing to syndepositional ramp folding and uplift driven by N-wards propagation of the outermost thrust fronts of the active N-Apennine chain.The incremental tectono-morphological and depositional history of the region permits to describe the propagation of the structural front as a polyphase process, involving uplift, wrenching and late collapse of the reliefs. This history is documented by: relicts of uplifted planation surfaces covered by latest Pleistocene weathered loess units; polygonal facets, landslides and slope wedges along faults delineating the slopes of the largest among the intra-basin reliefs (San Colombano hill); hydrographic anomalies on the relief network (river diversions, piracy and perching of valleys, paleovalley fills), river diversions and cross-cut relations on the adjacent alluvial plain. These features testify the thrust-fold-related, pre-LGM uplift of the Late Pleistocene alluvial stratigraphy, the subsequent segmentation of the relief in differently uplifting blocks along Riedel faults, owing to activation of a transfer fault zone, and the LGM extensional collapse of the relief, along inherited fault systems. A late, post-glacial outwards propagation of the Apennine thrusts was buttressed by the opponent Alpine thrust-belt front and induced the entrenchment of the river network. River diversions on the plain were controlled by the orientation of the San Colombano hill fault systems. The distribution of historical earthquakes and the present-day geodetic data are coherent with this evolution.The study documents how, in foreland basins, the syndepositional propagation of “blind” orogenic fronts shapes the palimpsest landscape with superimposed morphological, tectonic, and stratigraphic features of paleoseismic significance, and permits comparisons with the other low-relief basin settings worldwide.

Sociopolitical organization, landscape change, and hydraulic engineering in the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico: 1250 B.C.–A.D. 1810

The Teotihuacan Valley has witnessed the rise and fall of various civilizations since it was first inhabited by sedentary societies 3,500 years ago. Given its location in a semi‐arid environment, Teotihuacan has featured prominently in debates about the role of water and water management in the development of sedentism, culture, primary states, and large, complex societies. While many previous discussions tended to echo Wittfogel's “hydraulic hypothesis,” focusing on the ability of an elite few to monopolize water resources, we instead turn to a growing corpus of research showing varied water management strategies through time potentially resulting in distinct patterns of social organization. In this palimpsest landscape hydraulic and agricultural strategies were constrained not merely by present environmental conditions, but also by very real and material legacies of previous behavior. We discuss the state of research regarding these adaptations (and social responses) to water scarcity from the Early‐to‐Middle Formative Period (1250–650 B.C.) through the independence of Mexico (A.D. 1810), noting how previous fundamental assumptions about agriculture and hydraulic management in the Teotihuacan Valley have led to a significant number of neglected concepts and potential adaptations. If we are to address the current destruction of the Teotihuacan Valley's ecological and cultural resources in response to national development and climate change, a historical‐ecological perspective is necessary to disentangle the relevant processes that have shaped the landscape—and the cultures residing within it—to this day.This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Engineering Water > Planning Water

The Parrot & the Palimpsest

Palimpsest is not a common word. It denotes a papyrus or parchment that has been cleared of its text to make space on which something new may be written. Today – in an age when paper is cheap and readily available – the word is mostly used metaphorically. We can look, for example, at land as a kind of palimpsest. For millennia, we have erased living things from the land and allowed something new to be “written” with introduced and accidental transplants. In such “palimpsest landscapes,” birds are central. Their diversity and abundance serve as indicators of ecosystem disturbances. All too frequently, bird species have been introduced to new habitats and have become invasive; at the same time, many bird species have been exterminated by human actions. This year marks a poignant anniversary. Just 100 years ago, Conuropsis carolinensis , the Carolina parakeet, became extinct (in captivity, at least) when the last known individual was found dead in his cage at the Cincinnati Zoo – coincidentally, he lived and died in the very same building in which the last passenger pigeon ( Ectopistes migratorius ) had been kept and had died only four years earlier. As late as the …

The last occupation of Asine in Argolis

Kastraki Hill on the eastern Argolic Gulf, with visible remains of impressive fortifications, has been identified since the mid-19th century as the position occupied by the acropolis of ancient Asine. The first systematic excavations were carried out by the Swedish Institute in the 1920s and revealed the continuous habitation of the site from the Early Helladic period (3rd millennium BC) up to the late 4th-early 5th century AD. Many additions and repairs on the acropolis were made during the Byzantine period and the 2nd Venetian Occupation of the Peloponnese (1686–1715). However, the most destructive interventions in the area are the works carried out by the Italians during World War II. Fearing an invasion of the Allies on this side of the Peloponnese, the Italians fortified the acropolis by making additions to the ancient walls and constructing auxiliary buildings, pillboxes, observation posts and trenches around the rocky outcrop using materials from buildings of the Lower Town. Their departure after the war revealed the extent of the destruction of the antiquities. During the past few decades we have seen interest in approaching sites of recent conflict using archaeological methods that could help researchers understand these transformations of matter in a deeper way. Such is the case of Asine, a palimpsest landscape with archaeological and historical remains of human activity extending from prehistoric to modern European times. This article will attempt to reveal this hidden side of contemporary history and offer a glimpse into the lives of the last inhabitants of the ancient city.

Initial insights into the age and origin of the Kubuqi sand sea of northern China

The Kubuqi Desert is the only active sand sea in the semiarid regions of northern China and occurs along the southern margin of the Yellow River. Little is known about the age and origin of this large (17,000 km2) sand sea with a present annual precipitation of 200‐480 mm. Sand drift potentials indicated net capable winds for aeolian transport are from the northwest, though winds are stronger to north beyond the dune field than within the sand sea. Geomorphic and stratigraphic observations indicate that Holocene aeolian sand often drapes over bedrock and river terraces as a palimpsest landscape. Field investigations identified four stratigraphic sections with multiple aeolian sand units and palaeosols, with age control by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz grains. Palaeosols are weakly developed, mostly accumulative A horizon with organic carbon content <1% and reflect sand sheet deposition possibly in a steppe environment. Although sediments near river channels or former lakes might give old ages, the initial formation and age of the Kubuqi sand sea should be judged from the occurrence of the sandy palimpsest of the landscape that is OSL dated to the Holocene in general. The latest period of aeolian reactivation may be related to human activity associated with grazing and farming from lost cities in the Kubuqi Desert during the Han (206 B.C. – A.D. 220) and the Tang (A.D. 608 – 907) Dynasties. Also, variable discharge of the Yellow River with local diversions for irrigation and throughout the catchment resulted in possibly an increased supply of aeolian particles for dune field expansion in the past 2ka.

CLustre: semi‐automated lineament clustering for palaeo‐glacial reconstruction

AbstractDatasets containing large numbers (&gt;10 000) of glacial lineaments are increasingly being mapped from remotely sensed data in order to develop a palaeo‐glacial reconstruction or ‘inversion’. The palimpsest landscape presents a complex record of past ice flow and deconstructing this information into a logical history is an involved task. One stage in this process requires the identification of sets of genetically linked lineaments that can form the basis of a reconstruction.This paper presents a semi‐automated algorithm, CLustre, for lineament clustering that uses a locally adaptive, region growing, methodology. After outlining the algorithm, it is tested on synthetic datasets that simulate parallel and orthogonal cross‐cutting lineaments, encompassing 1500 separate classifications. Results show robust classification in most scenarios, although parallel overlap of lineaments can cause false positive classification unless there are differences in lineament length. Case studies for Dubawnt Lake and Victoria Island, Canada, are presented and compared with existing datasets. For Dubawnt Lake 9 out of 14 classifications directly match incorporating 89% of lineaments. For Victoria Island 57 out of 58 classifications directly match incorporating 95% of lineaments. Differences are related to small numbers of unclassified lineaments and parallel cross‐cutting lineaments that are of a similar length.CLustre enables the automated, repeatable, assignment of lineaments to flow sets using defined user criteria. This is important as qualitative visual interpretation may introduce bias, potentially weakening the testability of palaeo‐glacial reconstructions. In addition, once classified, summary statistics of lineament clusters can be calculated and subsequently used during the reconstruction process. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Typology of Cultural Landscapes and their Mapping at Various Territorial Levels

An approach to modeling of a cultural landscape, developed for its typology and mapping at various territorial levels, is presented. The proposed model of cultural landscape consists of points (loci), tracks (lines) and shapes (polygons), which together reflect the diversity of forms and types of anthropogenic impact. The age of the cultural landscape is understood as the age of its constituent elements indicating of the experience of interaction between man and nature. It is suggested that the problem of multi-scale nature of the cultural landscape is defined by multi-scale nature of culture. The approach is illustrated by the case of the identification of elements of the cultural landscape at the local level for individual regions of Europe and at the regional level for the Mediterranean. The indicative role of cultural heritage sites of recognized global significance in determining of the age of cultural landscapes and areas of the palimpsest landscape on the base of composition and location is considered.

The Brampton kame belt and Pennine escarpment meltwater channel system (Cumbria, UK): Morphology, sedimentology and formation

The Brampton kame belt represents one of the largest glaciofluvial complexes within the UK. It is composed of an array of landform-sediment assemblages, associated with a suite of meltwater channels and situated within a palimpsest landscape of glacial features in the heart of one of the most dynamic parts of the British–Irish Ice Sheet. Glacial geomorphological mapping and sedimentological analysis have allowed a detailed reconstruction of both the morphological features and the temporal evolution of the Brampton kame belt, with processes informed by analogues from modern ice margins. The kame belt demonstrates the development of a complex glacier karst typified by the evolution of subglacial meltwater tunnels into an englacial and supraglacial meltwater system dominated by ice-walled lakes and migrating ice-contact drainage networks. Topographic inversion led to the extensive reworking of sediments, with vertical collapse and debris flows causing partial disintegration of the morphology. The resultant landform comprises a series of kettle holes, discontinuous ridges and flat-topped hills. The Pennine escarpment meltwater network, which fed the Brampton kame belt, is composed of an anastomosing subglacial channel system and flights of lateral channels. The Brampton kame belt is envisaged to have formed during the stagnation of ice in the lee of the Pennines as ice retreated westwards into the Solway Lowlands. The formation of the Brampton kame belt also has particular conceptual resonance in terms of constraining the nature of kame genesis, whereby an evolving glacier karst is a key mechanism in the spatial and temporal development of ice-contact sediment-landform associations.

A Henge Too Far? Reinterpreting the Neolithic Monument Complex at Milfield, Northumberland

This paper reinterprets the archaeological evidence from the Neolithic monument complex in the Milfield Basin, Northumberland; a palimpsest landscape of earlier Neolithic enclosures, later Neolithic henges and Early Bronze Age burial monuments. Recent interpretative accounts of the Early Neolithic use of this complex have stressed economic factors as the driving-forces behind enclosure construction, whilst the six major later Neolithic henges have been integrated into a scheme of ritual processions. These interpretations are critically evaluated and the sites are placed in their regional and national context in an attempt to provide a new framework for the use and development of the complex. It is concluded that, far from having simplistic economic functions, the earlier Neolithic enclosures could be unique to the area. Representing the formalisation of a community's attempts to ensure social reproduction in times of change, through the articulation of the difference between circular and linear monumental forms. The re-examination of the later Neolithic evidence raises interesting questions as to how far we can ‘read’ monument complexes, and critically evaluates the extent to which we can argue a unity of purpose for these enigmatic accumulations of the past. Importantly, the reinterpretation of the Neolithic activity in this area exposes how readily archaeologists export social models from other regions, such as Wessex, and attempt to fit very diverse evidence into their framework. This paper concludes that we must continue the definition of the British Neolithic on a more regional basis and accept that core-periphery models, even if not explicitly articulated, have no place in archaeological explanation.

DRAINAGE REVERSALS AND TRANSVERSE RELATIONSHIPS OF RIVERS TO MORAINES IN SOUTHERN MICHIGAN

In southern Michigan, a multiglaciated area of thick drift, regional differences in the altitude of the buried bedrock surface control the direction of major drainage lines and facilitated some stream reversals during deglaciation. Furthermore, individual bedrock valleys, though deeply buried, may influence surface forms in a fashion that induces transverse relationships between river courses and morainal trends. Apparently one or more ancestral glacial landscapes were influenced by the bedrock surface and are also reflected in the present topography. Such palimpsest landscapes may be more widespread in glaciated terrains than have generally been recognized.