Special Issue "Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée"
A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 September 2018).
Special Issue Editors
Dr. Giorgos Papantoniou Website E-Mail
Research Training Group 1878: Archaeology of Pre-Modern Economies, Institut für Archäologie und Kulturanthropologie, Abteilung für Klassische Archäologie, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany
Interests: ancient Cyprus; Mediterranean archaeology; archaeological theory and methods; landscape archaeology; the archaeology of ritual and religion; ancient art, iconography and artefact studies (with emphasis on sculpture and terracotta figurines); Hellenistic portraiture and Hellenistic ruler image-making
Dr. Athanasios Vionis Website E-Mail
Archaeological Research Unit, Department of History and Archaeology University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
Interests: landscape archaeology and archaeological survey; settlement archaeology; sacred landscapes; the transition from polytheism to Christianity (4th–6th century AD); the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (7th–9th c. AD); Identity in Byzantine art and material culture (social, religious, ethnic); Byzantine everyday life through the sources (texts—pictorial evidence—material culture); the history and archaeology of food consumption; technology/production—distribution—use of Byzantine and post-Byzantine ceramic vesselsSpecial Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue aims to rethink and reevaluate the Central Place Theory in light of contemporary developments in settlement archaeology, methods and archaeological thought by bringing together ‘central places’ and ‘un-central landscapes’ and grasping diachronically upon the complex relation between town and country, as shaped by political economies and the availability of natural resources. The chronological range of the volume is open, ranging from prehistory to the recent past.
Micro-environments with natural boundaries (e.g., rivers, mountains, woods) and desirable resources (e.g., water, arable land, minerals) sustained nucleated communities and remained occupied for almost every period. On the other hand, ‘central persons’ may be as important as ‘central place’ and this is where the concept of political economy evolves. As T. Earle has eloquently argued on several occasions, all economic theories should recognize that, to whatever degree realized, power strategies were built on economic and ideological control over resources.
Landscape archaeology is an area of study that overcomes the conventional boundaries between disciplines, such as anthropology, history and geography, and provides a fresh perspective and a powerful investigative tool to address research questions related to the conscious and the unconscious shaping of the land and the processes of organizing space, involving interaction between the physical environment and human presence. Temporality, spatiality, materiality and site-based analysis are all encompassed in the concept of landscapes, and therefore through its study much can be said about human responses to the changing conditions of life in the longue durée (i.e. the long term history).
The volume wishes to include papers addressing ‘central places’ and/or ‘un-central landscapes’ from a political economy or/and a natural resources perspective. Moving away from model-bounded approaches, Central Place Theory is used more flexibly to include all the places that may have functioned as places of economic or ideological centrality (even in a local context) in the past, including urban centers, agro-towns, countryside settlements, burial and ritual topoi. The diversity of the different disciplinary perspectives and approaches, combined with dialogues, enriches our task of multiple interpretations, and should be seen as a healthy pluralism.
References
Dr. Giorgos Papantoniou
- Citter, C. Landscapes, settlements and sustainability. In Handbook of Landscape Archaeology, PCA Studies 2; Chavarria, A. Reynolds, A. Eds., SAP: Mantova, Italy, 2015; pp. 253–272.
- Collar, A.; Coward, F.; Brughmans, T; Mills, B.J. Networks in archaeology: Phenomena, abstraction, representation. J. Archaeol. Method Theory 2015, 22, 1–32.
- Christaller, W. Central Places in Southern Germany. Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA, 1966.
- Earle, T. How Chiefs Come to Power. Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA, USA; 1997.
- Earle, T. An Essay on Political Economies in Prehistory. Habelt-Verlag: Bonn, Germany, 2017.
- Feinman, G.M.; Garraty, C.P. Preindustrial markets and marketing: Archaeological perspectives. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010, 39, 167–191.
- Hanson, J.W. An Urban Geography of the Roman World, 100 BC to AD 300 (Archaeopress Roman Archaeology 18); Archaeopress Publishing Ltd: Oxford, UK, 2016
- Jiménez, M.J.; Garcia, C.T. Central places in the post-Roman Mediterranean: Regional models for the Iberian Peninsula. J. Mediterr. Archaeol. 2015, 28, 81–103.
- Koder, J. Land use and settlement: Theoretical approaches. In General Issues in the Study of Medieval Logistics. Sources, Problems and Methodologies; Haldon, J.F. Ed.; Brill Academic Pub: Leiden, The Netherlands, 2006; pp. 159–183.
- Lösch, A. The Economics of Location. Yale University Press: New Haven, London,1954.
Dr. Athanasios Vionis
Guest Editors Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.Keywords
- Landscape Archaeology
- Environment
- Natural Resources
- Central Places
- Settlement Systems
- Historical Geography
- Political Economy
- Diachroneity
Result details
Editorial
Jump to: ResearchCentral Place Theory Reloaded and Revised: Political Economy and Landscape Dynamics in the Longue Durée
Land 2019, 8(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/land8020036 - 21 Feb 2019Cited by 1
Abstract
The aim of this contribution is to introduce the topic of this volume and briefly measure the evolution and applicability of central place theory in previous and contemporary archaeological practice and thought [...] Full article(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition availableResearch
Jump to: Editorial‘Un-Central’ Landscapes of NE-Africa and W-Asia—Landscape Archaeology as a Tool for Socio-Economic History in Arid Landscapes
Land 2019, 8(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/land8010001 - 22 Dec 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
Arid regions in the Old World Dry Belt are assumed to be marginal regions, not only in ecological terms, but also economically and socially. Such views in geography, archaeology, and sociology are—despite the real limits of living in arid landscapes—partly influenced by derivates [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresThe River as an Economic Asset: Settlement and Society in the Xeros Valley in Cyprus
Land 2018, 7(4), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040157 - 13 Dec 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus (SeSaLaC) is a systematic archaeological survey project of the University of Cyprus in the Xeros River valley in the Larnaka district in Cyprus. This article aims to present a first synthesis of the diachronic settlement pattern in [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresTransforming Culture on an Insula Portunalis: Port Cities as Central Places in Early Roman Cyprus
Land 2018, 7(4), 155; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040155 - 09 Dec 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
During the Early Roman period in the Mediterranean (ca. 30 BC–330 AD), the key central places that distinguished socio-political landscapes were towns. These urban centers functioned as economic and administrative focal points that were controlled by local elites who oversaw wealth redistribution and [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresThe Economic Centrality of Urban Centers in the Medieval Peloponnese: Late 11th–Mid-14th Centuries
Land 2018, 7(4), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040153 - 07 Dec 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
The Peloponnese, a province of the Byzantine Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries, was divided into three distinct political entities after 1204: the Frankish Principality of Achaia, the Venetian colonies of Modon and Coron, and the Byzantine lands in the southeast. The [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresThe Cypriot Extra-Urban Sanctuary as a Central Place: the Case of Agia Irini
Land 2018, 7(4), 139; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040139 - 16 Nov 2018Cited by 2
Abstract
This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between sanctuaries and the territoriality of the Iron Age polities of Cyprus. The sanctuary site of Agia Irini, at the locality Alonia, is used as a case-study to test hypotheses regarding the connection [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresTimacum Minus in Moesia Superior—Centrality and Urbanism at a Roman Mining Settlement
Land 2018, 7(4), 126; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040126 - 22 Oct 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
When applying traditional criteria of Roman urbanism, several settlements in the province of Moesia are not recognised as parts of the urban network. To avoid this, previous criteria of urbanism should be revised. This paper suggests revisions, which provide a more inclusive definition [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresFrom Town to Countryside: Middle-Byzantine Bath-Houses in Eastern Crete and Their Changing Functions
Land 2018, 7(3), 107; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030107 - 12 Sep 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
The article examines the context of a recently discovered double bath-house complex in Loutres, a site near Mochlos on the north shore of eastern Crete. The excavators explore the broader questions posed by the finding, in connection to both its immediate surroundings and [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresWatery Entanglements in the Cypriot Hinterland
Land 2018, 7(3), 104; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030104 - 05 Sep 2018Cited by 3
Abstract
This paper examines how water shaped people’s interaction with the landscape in Cyprus during the Bronze Age. The theoretical approach is drawn from the new materialisms, effectively a ‘turn to matter’, which emphasises the very materiality of the world and challenges the privileged [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresFrom Contrary to Complementary Models: Central Places and Gateways in the South-Eastern Provence (Arles and Marseille)
Land 2018, 7(3), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030095 - 13 Aug 2018Cited by 2
Abstract
This paper applies the concepts of gateways and centrality, formerly opposing approaches to spatial planning, by now a powerful merged tool for archaeologists, to understand the dynamics of the evolution of cities and settlements in a long-term perspective. The samples are the two [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresCentral Place and Liminal Landscape in the Territory of Populonia
Land 2018, 7(3), 94; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030094 - 03 Aug 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
This article aims to outline new data on the urbanization of Populonia starting from its foundation, with particular reference to the results of archaeological surveys carried out by the University of Siena since the 1980s. The landscape archaeology approach has allowed us to [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresLandscape and Hunting. The Economy of the Eschatia
Land 2018, 7(3), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030089 - 26 Jul 2018Cited by 1
Abstract
This paper explores the place of ancient Greek hunting within the Greek landscape and environment, with particular reference to the eschatia, the marginal, uncultivated (or marginally cultivated) land. It is part of a bigger project on the social history of hunting in [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition availableThe Relative Concentration of Interaction—A Proposal for an Integrated Understanding of Centrality and Central Places
Land 2018, 7(3), 86; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7030086 - 20 Jul 2018Cited by 5
Abstract
The importance of a place can be assessed via an analysis of its centrality. However, although central place research has a long history, there is no generally accepted theoretical base, leading to continuous debates about the core elements of centrality and those features [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show FiguresShifting Centres: Site Location and Resource Procurement on the North Coast of Cyprus over the Longue Durée of the Prehistoric Bronze Age
Land 2018, 7(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/land7020064 - 16 May 2018Cited by 5
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between site location, resource procurement, and political economy in the context of three localised centres of settlement—Vasilia, Vounous, and Lapithos—which succeeded each other in the narrow, naturally bounded north coastal strip of Cyprus during the approximately 750 years [...] Read more.(This article belongs to the Special Issue Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée) Printed Edition available► Show Figures
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