Landscape research in a world of domesticated landscapes: The role of values, theory, and concepts

This review takes as its starting point the relationship between landscape history and environmental policy. Landscape historians now face the same problem that social scientists have long faced, i.e., how to relate to values and to the political use of scientific results, which demands greater conceptual and theoretical rigour from integrative landscape studies. The concept of social–ecological systems is criticised for its reduction of the complexity and human agency involved in land use; in contrast, Clark Erickson’s concept of domesticated landscapes offers an approach that can incorporate humanist as well as scientific considerations. The roles of surplus production and labour allocation in early societies are seen as crucial for understanding early domesticated landscapes. Different social formations result in different landscapes, but landscapes also have an earthly inertia. Investments in land govern, steer, impede, or inspire land use in subsequent social formations. This specific understanding of time and place is shared by Quaternary geology, landscape archaeology, and historical geography, and distinguishes them from both history and physics.