OPEN WORKSHOP 1-4 APRIL 2009:

 

Socio-environmental dynamics over the last 12,000 years: the creation of landscapes

 

 

• Session 2: Central sites

Session chair:

J. Müller, U. Müller, C. Steffen, R. Schneider

 

Session scope:

Spatial organisation of landscape through central places appears to be a basic achievement of almost all societies. Processes of centralisation are an expression of settling dynamics, in social practices as well as in the adaptation to environmental parameters. The development of centrality in settlement systems is intimately linked to the creation of social space in landscape and the rise of central hierarchies in societies.

Archaeologists employ an array of models and methods to record and to describe centralisation processes. With the arrival of geographical approaches in archaeology, questions related to  „centrality“, „centrally localised functions“ or „settlement hierarchy“ have been decoupled from the original theories and are now explored with GIS and other analyses. Research dealing with concepts of “spatial turn” and “new geography” attributes a more subordinate role to concepts of “centrality” and “central places”.

 

Session programme:

To download here

 

Abstracts for session 2:

To download here

 

 

• Session 1: Monuments and monumentality

 

• Session 3: Impact of resource exploitation, trade, and transport on environment and societies

 

• Session 4: Separating natural and anthropogenic influences in environmental change

 

• Session 5: Population dynamics and demographic proxies

 

• Session 6: Perception, mental construction and conceptualisation of landscapes

 

• Session 7: New approaches and proxies for socio-environmental reconstructions

 

• Public Lectures: Wednesday, 1st April

 

The current general workshop programme ist available here