The Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes: Human-Environment Interaction from the Neolithic to the Roman Period

Kevin Walsh. (2014). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.     

Aiming to bridge the gap between environmental science and archaeology/ancient history, Walsh addresses key aspects of the ancient Mediterranean environment, ranging in time from the emergence of neolithic agriculture to the Roman Imperial period with the structure of each chapter moving from a general overview of the topic to specific case studies at the end. Walsh opens with ways of defining the Mediterranean through geology and biology (Chapter 2) before moving onto discussions of human relationships with water, with Chapter 3 focussed on coastal settlements and sea-level change and Chapter 4 on rivers and wetlands. Attention then turns to environmental degradation, particularly in relation to vegetation (Chapter 5) and how people both contributed and adapted to such degradation (Chapter 6). The final two chapters focus on humans in more remote topographical regions: islands (Chapter 7) and mountains (chapter 8). The book concludes with thoughts about how study of how the Mediterranean landscape and environment has changed in the past can help theorise about how it will behave in the wake of the current climate crisis.

Example quotation

The human experience and the development of social relations are formed via interactions with the natural world. […] Such relationships are of course contingent upon a number of specific historical and geographical phenomena, and, as archaeologists, we can only ever propose possible scenarios. An integrated landscape archaeology, which operates with in historical and cultural ecological frameworks, does enhance the elucidation of the lifeways of those peoples who engaged with the environmental processes discussed in this volume.

(p.280)