ARCH40215: CULTURAL LANDSCAPES OF EURASIA

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• To provide a coherent overview of the development of the landscapes of Eurasia, and an in-depth knowledge of a particular regional landscape of the student's choice.
• To provide a broad understanding of landscape archaeology which will complement other parts of the MA (Archaeology).

• Content is to be drawn from a wide geographical area ranging from the islands of the North Atlantic to India and South Asia.
• Themes to include: prehistoric landscapes of Europe, landscapes of city states of the Near East, landscapes of the Roman Mediterranean, and landscapes of NW Europe.
• Lectures: Lectures are structured to extend from a core area in the Middle East, where agricultural landscapes are ancient, to the more recent landscapes of the islands of the NW Atlantic. This approach will enable a wide range of landscape types and theoretical stances to be tackled. Conceptually the module will include: cultural ecological approaches to landscape; phenomenological investigations of prehistoric landscapes; intensive survey of the busy landscapes of the Classical / Roman Mediterranean; studies of historical landscapes of post-Medieval Britain which employ written records to read landscape history. Depending upon the participating students the four lecture blocks will include: Signature landscapes of the Middle East, Central & South Asia, People and Place in Europe, Landscapes of the circum-Mediterranean region, landscapes of NW Europe and the UK.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• A knowledge of the history and archaeology of the landscape drawn from a wide swathe of Asia and Europe.
• In-depth knowledge of a particular regional landscape within the region of Eurasia (defined above).
• A knowledge of the range of approaches taken to the analysis of ancient landscapes.

Subject-specific Skills:

• An understanding of the application of landscape studies to Britain, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.
• An ability to analyze similar landscapes in different regions and critically assess the processes that contributed to their development To develop methodologically sound approaches to the analysis of landscapes in different geographical regions

Key Skills:

• Evaluation and integration of data over broad temporal and spatial ranges with a view to providing higher level syntheses.
• Use of basic methods of manipulation of digital images and spatial data in order to analyze complex landscapes.

• Lectures introduce the core subject knowledge; Tutorials further discuss matters arising from lectures & workshops. The learning outcomes are assessed by an essay of 3000 words and a practical assessment of a landscape survey of 2000 words.

The preparation achieved in the module RSS that precedes this module is considered to be sufficient formative prepration for the summative assignment in this module.

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