Interpretation is Evolution: Whose History?

When I try to explain to non-history people what my degree means, I used to hit wall after all. It was so hard explaining exactly what, Applied History, really means. People understand, History, but the idea of public history has a certain brand of special sauce added on top. I used to say something akin to, doing Park Ranger things, though that never really worked. When I had a group on an historical landscape, I\u27d often just say, Public History is this. It doesn\u27t work. Those definitions aren\u27t clear. [excerpt

Coevolution between Terraced Landscapes and Rural Communities: An Integrated Approach Using Expert-Based Assessment and Evaluation of Winegrowers' Perceptions (Northwest Piedmont, Italy)

Terraced landscapes are characterized by many features but are also threatened by abandonment, with the loss of the historical landscape and increased hydrogeological risk. In this research, we developed an innovative integrated approach using expert-based assessment and evaluation of winegrowers’ perceptions to investigate the coevolution between terraced landscapes and rural communities. The aims were as follows: (i) to identify the historical landscape elements, (ii) to identify the landscape dynamics, and (iii) to analyze winegrowers’ perceptions about the historical landscape elements and future development prospects. The methodology was applied to a terraced vineyard landscape (545 ha) located in Piedmont (Italy). The expert-based assessment included historical analyses and field surveys. To evaluate winegrowers’ perceptions, an online questionnaire was used to understand their perceptions about the landscape’s historical elements and dynamics. The results suggest that unique historical landscape elements and traditional practices (vine pergolas supported by stone columns) are conserved in the area, but also highlight some dynamics, including new vine-breeding techniques (espaliers) and new land uses (olive groves, meadows, and woodland). Winegrowers (n = 49) recognized as identity elements the same identified as historical by experts. Regarding future prospects, almost all winegrowers preferred the conservation of vineyards and pergolas. The research methodology was able to show the mutual link between terraced landscapes and rural communities in coevolutionary terms and could be replicated in similar contexts. According to the winegrowers’ awareness, future planning strategies will have to support dynamic conservation of the landscape

Folklore or Fakelore? : The Problem of Staged Authenticity

Item does not contain fulltextThe Protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape, 20 mei 200

Cultural landscapes: the farms comprising the area to be inundated by the proposed Spring Grove Dam, Nottingham Road / Rosetta

This is a cultural and historical landscape assessment for the farms impacted upon by inundation as a result of dam construction in KwaZulu-Nata

The legacy of 20th Century landscape change on today’s woodland carabid communities

Aim For many species, the effects of landscape change can involve a time lag and result in an extinction debt. The landscape matrix plays a vital role in supporting species populations. However, the importance of the historical composition and configuration of landscape mosaics has received little attention, with studies focusing on the effects of loss and fragmentation of single (focal) habitat over time. We investigated the importance of historical and contemporary landscape heterogeneity (composition and configuration) to identify how landscape change has, and is continuing to have, an effect on current woodland carabid communities. Location Lowland Britain. Methods Carabids were sampled from woodlands in 36 tetrads of 4 km2. Ordination methods analysed current community response to representations of contemporary and historical (1930’s) landscape heterogeneity. The effects of 80 years of landscape change on current carabid assemblages were compared among tetrads. Results Results are consistent with an extinction debt; carabid communities correlated significantly with the historical composition and configuration of the landscape, but not contemporary landscape configuration. Community assemblages have been shaped, and many species remain affiliated with landscape conditions that no longer exist, notably, large patches of broadleaf woodland and semi-natural grassland. Recent introduction of conifer plantations has had a negative effect on the abundance of many woodland species. For many common, slow-dispersing species, contemporary and historical landscapes offered sub-optimum woodland coverage indicating a lag effect that exceeds 80 years. Increased arable landcover and loss of semi-natural grassland and heathland points towards an ongoing detrimental impact on carabid populations. Main conclusions Compared with focal-habitat studies, the landscape mosaic approach provides a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of widespread landscape change on species communities. Conservation guidance includes new planting, maintenance and restoration of semi-natural habitats, implemented across multiple spatial scales and where feasible, considering both historical and contemporary landscape heterogeneity

Review of Shared Spaces and Divided Places: Material Dimensions of Gender Relations and the American Historical Landscape.

Reviews the book Shared Spaces and Divided Places: Material Dimensions of Gender Relations and the American Historical Landscape, edited by Deborah L. Rotman and Ellen-Rose Savulis

Modelling historical landscape changes

Context: Historical maps of land use/land cover (LULC) enable detection of landscape changes, and help to assess drivers and potential future trajectories. However, historical maps are often limited in their spatial and temporal coverage. There is a need to develop and test methods to improve re-construction of historical landscape change. Objectives: To implement a modelling method to accurately identify key land use changes over a rural landscape at multiple time points. Methods: We used existing LULC maps at two time points for 1930 and 2015, along with a habitat time-series dataset, to construct two new, modelled LULC maps for Dorset in 1950 and 1980 to produce a four-step time-series. We used the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) Scenario Generator tool to model new LULC maps. Results: The modelled 1950 and 1980 LULC maps were cross-validated against habitat survey data and demonstrated a high level of accuracy (87% and 84%, respectively) and low levels of model uncertainty. The LULC time-series revealed the timing of LULC changes in detail, with the greatest losses in neutral and calcareous grassland having occurred by 1950, the period when arable land expanded the most, whilst the expansion in agriculturally-improved grassland was greatest over the period 1950–1980. Conclusions: We show that the modelling approach is a viable methodology for re-constructing historical landscapes. The time-series output can be useful for assessing patterns and changes in the landscape, such as fragmentation and ecosystem service delivery, which is important for informing future land management and conservation strategies

‘The Figure (and Disfigurement) in the Landscape: The Go-Between’

Mark Broughton, ‘The Figure (and Disfigurement) in the Landscape: The Go-Between’, paper presented at Contested Ground: Defining Historical Landscape, New Haven, USA, 28-30 January, 2005.The Go-Between (Joseph Losey, 1971) makes the causal links between the body and the country estate in which it performs ironically explicit. These links are brutal. The country estate’s grounds have been landscaped and its outlying fields are cultivated, but they in turn seem to affect a figure in the landscape, inflicting violence on the protagonist Leo Colston. The violence paradoxically embraces both myth and historical materialism; the Gothic tradition is redeployed by the film to make the dark side of the landscape visible. The triangulation established between landscape, body and camera in The Go-Between creates an ironic symbolism. Leo emerges as a new, human incarnation of the genius loci of the picturesque tradition: he performs within and thus alters the landscape, while he himself takes on elements of that landscape. This essay considers how The Go-Between presents its historical landscape as a socio-economic construction, which is ultimately instrumental in the downfall of the genius loci; Leo is fatally forced to confuse his magical and materialist readings of the estate’s grounds. The landscape is thus reclaimed from his imagination by its owners. Various disfigurements become the corollaries of Leo’s performance in, and the owners’ reclamation of, the historical landscape. Several characters are marked.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The Cultural Landscape & Heritage Paradox; Protection and Development of the Dutch Archeological-Historical Landscape and its European Dimension

To what extent can we know past and mainly invisible landscapes, and how we can use this still hidden knowledge for actual sustainable management of landscape’s cultural and historical values. It has also been acknowledged that heritage management is increasingly about ‘the management of future change rather than simply protection’. This presents us with a paradox: to preserve our historic environment, we have to collaborate with those who wish to transform it and, in order to apply our expert knowledge, we have to make it suitable for policy and society. The answer presented by the Protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape programme (pdl/bbo) is an integrative landscape approach which applies inter- and transdisciplinarity, establishing links between archaeological-historical heritage and planning, and between research and policy. This is supported by two unifying concepts: ‘biography of landscape’ and ‘action research’. This approach focuses upon the interaction between knowledge, policy and an imagination centered on the public. The European perspective makes us aware of the resourcefulness of the diversity of landscapes, of social and institutional structures, of various sorts of problems, approaches and ways forward. In addition, two related issues stand out: the management of knowledge creation for landscape research and management, and the prospects for the near future. Underlying them is the imperative that we learn from the past ‘through landscape’

Present and historical landscape structure shapes current species richness in Central European grasslands

Current diversity and species composition of ecological communities can often not exclusively be explained by present land use and landscape structure. Historical land use may have considerably influenced ecosystems and their properties for decades and centuries.We analysed the effects of present and historical landscape structure on plant and arthropod species richness in temperate grasslands, using data from comprehensive plant and arthropod assessments across three regions in Germany and maps of current and historical land cover from three time periods between 1820 and 2016.We calculated local, grassland class and landscape scale metrics for 150 grassland plots. Class and landscape scale metrics were calculated in buffer zones of 100 to 2000 m around the plots. We considered effects on total species richness as well as on the richness of species subsets determined by taxonomy and functional traits related to habitat use, dispersal and feeding.Overall, models containing a combination of present and historical landscape metrics showed the best fit for several functional groups. Comparing three historical time periods, data from the 1820/50s was among the most frequent significant time periods in our models (29.7% of all significant variables).Our results suggest that the historical landscape structure is an important predictor of current species richness across different taxa and functional groups. This needs to be considered to better identify priority sites for conservation and to design biodiversity-friendly land use practices that will affect landscape structure in the future