The temporality of the landscape

Abstract

Lanscape and temporality are the major unifying themes of archaeology and socio-cultural anthropology. This paper attempts to show how the temporality of the lanscape may be understood by way of a "dwelling perspective" that sets out from the premise of people´s active, perceptual engagement in the world. The meaning of "landscape" is calrified by contrst to the concepts of land, nature and space. The notion of "taskcape" is introduced to denote a pattren of dwelling activities, and the intrinsic temporality of the taskcape is shown to lie in its rhytmic interrelations or pattrens of resonance. By considering how taskcape relates to landscape, the distinction between them is ultimately dissolved, and the landscape itself is show to be fundamentally temporal. Some concrete illustrations of these arguments are drawn from a painting by Bruegel, The Harvesters.