An agnostic approach to ancient landscapes
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In: Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History, Vol. 9, 2013, p. 3-30.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - An agnostic approach to ancient landscapes
AU - Winder, Isabelle Catherine
AU - Winder, Nick P.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - We argue that the phenomenological or ?agnostic? approach to evolutionary systems advocated by Thomas Henry Huxley is applicable in anthropological archaeology and show how agnosticism helps defuse the tension between humanists, natural philosophers and natural historians in integrative research. We deploy problem-framing methods from policy-relevant research in a palaeoanthropological context, developing a model of complex (scale-dependent, irreversible) causality and applying it to the problem of human-landscape interaction and primate foot anatomy. We illustrate this process with a single iteration of the ?project cycle? focussed on human-landscape interaction. Modern humans are co-operative resilience feeders, exploiting complex causality by perturbing stable, unproductive landscapes and feeding on the fluxes of energy and resources released as they spring back. Is it possible that this resilience-feeding is older than Homo sapiens?
AB - We argue that the phenomenological or ?agnostic? approach to evolutionary systems advocated by Thomas Henry Huxley is applicable in anthropological archaeology and show how agnosticism helps defuse the tension between humanists, natural philosophers and natural historians in integrative research. We deploy problem-framing methods from policy-relevant research in a palaeoanthropological context, developing a model of complex (scale-dependent, irreversible) causality and applying it to the problem of human-landscape interaction and primate foot anatomy. We illustrate this process with a single iteration of the ?project cycle? focussed on human-landscape interaction. Modern humans are co-operative resilience feeders, exploiting complex causality by perturbing stable, unproductive landscapes and feeding on the fluxes of energy and resources released as they spring back. Is it possible that this resilience-feeding is older than Homo sapiens?
KW - Agnostic
KW - Landscape
KW - Hominin
KW - Palaeoanthropology
KW - Phenomenology
KW - Project cycle
M3 - Article
VL - 9
SP - 3
EP - 30
JO - Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History
JF - Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History
ER -