Changing Landscapes and Persistent Places: An Exploration of the Bjäre Peninsula
- ISBN-10
- 9189578309
- ISBN-13
- 9789189578302
- Category
- Bjärehalvön
- Pages
- 316
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2009
- Author
- Jenny Nord
Description
"Changing Landscapes and Persistent Places is a study of the cultural landscape on the Bjäre peninsula in northwest Skåne. The many Bronze Age remains that give the landscape its distinctive character are the starting point for an attempt to increase our understanding of the historical depth of today's landscape. The two perspectives of "landscape" and "places" carry the discussion forward, almost in dialogue form. From an archaeological point of view, studying the landscape itself is a relatively new way of considering landscape; usually archaeology is more geared to individual sites and their mutual relations, or to the human impact on the landscape as this can be read, for instance, in pollen diagrams. Yet there is great need for a new holistic approach to the landscape. This need arises from the European Landscape Convention which is soon to be ratified in Sweden. Among other things, the convention means that the landscape must be treated as a whole, with increased democratic influence and with greater understanding of the extensive processes of change to which today's landscape is exposed. The dissertation studies the landscape and antiquities of Bjäre through traditional landscape archaeology and through interdisciplinary methods, in order to arrive at an understanding of the conditions in which people lived in prehistoric times. Extensive fieldwork has also been done to give a more complete and fair picture of the rock carvings in the area. Another important part of the work has been to develop new methods for understanding today's landscape as a whole and the processes that have shaped it. The English method of landscape analysis, Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC), is very well suited to both these purposes and to the needs and demands of the European Landscape Convention, and the dissertation includes a pilot study intended to develop this method."--Publisher's website.
