Signifying Place and Space

It seems that, over recent years, the term landscape has received much discussion, albeit based on the mechanics of landscape. What has been omitted is the construction of landscape in terms of aesthetics, knowledge, emotion, interpretation and application. Although landscape is 'there', we control the imagination and cognitive construction of it. Fundamentally, landscape can be defined as a series of 'spaces' that become 'places', and, within this volume (the product of a number of conference sessions run between 1997-99 by the Theoretical Archaeology Group), 17 contributors re-address the importance of space/place and suggest both may be considered as part of an archaeological assemblage. Some chapters also attempt to place rock art into a narrative, placing its historical value into a prehistoric context.