Summaries of the contributions and a few considerations

Abstract

Cultural, sociological and political factors determine the nature of human societies, but the environment clearly played a dominant role in our early histories and continues to influence society. The objective of this book is to examine this important factor in our history, not only from the standpoint of how the environment influences humanity, but also from the perspective of how we affect the environment. A case history approach is taken with revealing examples chosen to cover prehistoric to recent times. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which societies modified their territories in response to changing conditions-matter of some topicality now. Meaning of the terms landscape and society are considered in more detail in the next chapter. For present purposes landscape will be taken to mean a geological/ geomorphologic/environmental entity within the terrestrial biosphere possessing attributes dependent on climate, hydrology, soils, organisms and historical development. Society is considered to represent a group of people living together within the landscape(s) of a region, and sharing customs, language, laws or institutions. All societies have their complexities, but the ones considered the most complex in terms of institutions and material development are the ones we call civilizations, a word used in this book as a non-judgmental, neutral designation. Much has already been written on these topics, and the subject is clearly of intrinsic interest, but potentially there is a clear practical value in such studies. It may be that in the give and take between humans and the biosphere in the past, there are lessons to be learned that could serve us well during the current period of global change, for historical purposes as well as for properly planning out present activities and our future. Clearly from ancient times much has changed, particularly with increasingly powerful technologies enabling modifications to the landscape that dwarf most anthropic changes of former times. However, although our sphere of influence has progressed from the village and its immediate environs to McLuhan's Global Village (McLuhan 1962), there remain some basic principles of society/landscape interaction that are brought out in the chapters of this book. The choice of case-histories is potentially very large. Our selection has been guided by the need to illustrate as concisely as possible, human populations in a wide variety of landscapes over the time period from Neolithic to the present when Homo sapiens became the dominant large mammal in the biosphere. We have favored the Mediterranean area because in a relatively small region these requirements of time and space are well satisfied. In addition, much geological, archaeological, and historical information is available. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.