The Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes The Archaeology of Adaptation [Paperback]

This innovative and important volume presents the archaeological and anthropological foundations of the landscape learning process. Contributions apply the related fields of ethnography, cognitive psychology, and historical archaeology to the issues of individual exploration, development of trail systems, folk knowledge, social identity, and the role of the frontier in the growth of the modern world.

A series of case studies examines the archaeological evidence for and interpretations of landscape learning from the movement of the first pre-modern humans into Europe, peoplings of the Old and New World at the end of the Ice Age, and colonization of the Pacific, to the English colonists at Jamestown.

The final chapters summarize the implications of the landscape learning idea for our understanding of human history and set out a framework for future research.

List of Tables and Figures  List of Contributors  Foreword  Acknowledgements  Editors' Introduction  Section One: Conceptual Frameworks  1. Knowledge and Learning in the Archaeology of Colonization  2. Human Wayfinding Behaviour  3. Colonization of New Land by Hunter-Gatherers: Expectations and Implications Based on Ethnographic Data  4. Tracking the Role of Pathways in the Evolution of a Human Landscape: the St. Croix Riverway in Ethnohistorical Perspective  5. Mining Rushes and Landscape Learning in the Modern World  Section 2: Case Studies  6. Landscape Learning and the Earliest Peopling of Europe  7. The Social Context of Landscape Learning and the Lateglacial - Early Postglacial Recolonization of the British Isles  8. Where Do We Go From Here? : Modelling the Decision-Making Process During Exploratory Dispersal  9. Deerslayers, Pathfinders and Icemen: Origins of thl3z