Landscapes of Movement

Trails, Paths, and Roads in Anthropological Perspective

James E. Snead, Clark L. Erickson, J. Andrew Darling

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781934536131, 9781934536131
• eBook ISBN: 9781934536537
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Antropologia

Landscapes of Movement originates from the premise that trails, paths, and roads are the physical manifestation of human movement through the landscape and are central to an understanding of that movement. The study of these features connects with many intellectual domains, engaging history, geography, environmental studies, and, in particular, anthropology and archaeology. These diverse fields together provide not only a better understanding of infrastructure but also of social, political, and economic organization, cultural expressions of patterned movement, and the ways in which trails, paths, and roads reflect a culture's traditional knowledge, worldview, memory, and identity.The contributors to Landscapes of Movement document these routes across different times and cultures, from those made by hunter-gatherers in the Great Basin of North America to causeways in the Bolivian Amazon to Bronze Age towns in the Near East, examined through aerial and satellite photography, surface survey, historic records, and archaeological excavation. The essays consider many factors in the development and use of trails, paths, and roads, including labor, technology, terrain characteristics, landscape features, access, and ownership. Diverse scales of movement are also addressed, ranging from paths between home and fields to roads used for long-distance journeying. Overall, the book makes the case for the centrality of paths, trails, and roads as an organizing element of human lives throughout history.PMIRC, volume 1

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Making Human Space: The Archaeology of Trails, Paths, and Roads
• 2 Kukhepya: Searching for Hopi Trails
• 3 Trails of Tradition: Movement, Meaning, and Place
• 4 O’odham Trails and the Archaeology of Space
• 5 Reconstructing Southern Paiute–Chemehuevi Trails in the Mojave Desert of Southern Nevada and California: Ethnographic Perspectives from the 1930s
• 6 From Path to Myth: Journeys and the Naturalization of TerritorialIdentity along the Missouri River
• 7 A Road by Any Other Name: Trails, Paths, and Roads in Maya Language and Thought
• 8 When the Construction of Meaning Preceded the Meaning of Construction: From Footpaths to Monumental Entrances in Ancient Costa Rica
• 9 Emergent Landscapes of Movement in Early Bronze Age Northern Mesopotamia
• 10 Agency, Causeways, Canals, and the Landscapes of Everyday Life in the Bolivian Amazon
• 11 Precolumbian Causeways and Canals as Landesque Capital
• 12 Routes through the Landscape: A Comparative Approach
• Appendices
• 1 Coding of the Cases of Paths, Trails, and Roads Discussed in the Conference
• 2 Comparative Variables for Trails, Paths, and Roads
• References
• Contributors