ABSTRACT
Our Earth is ever changing. Continental plates shift, ocean levels rise and fall, mountains and shores erode, deserts and glaciers move, and natural disasters change the face of the globe. These are natural processes that have been shaping the surface of the Earth for billions of years. Over a much shorter period of time, formerly insignificant organisms known as homo sapiens began to shape natural environments to fit their needs. This is not unusual for organisms: Certainly, all plants and animals will transform natural surroundings to fit their needs. However, humans were different in that they not only sought actively to control their surroundings, but they managed to colonize every habitable surface ecosystem on the planet, from high mountains to low valleys, and from Arctic tundra to equatorial deserts. As the population of humans grew and their social structures became more complex, the effect of these creatures on the surface of the Earth became more noticeable. Indeed, as both social and cognizant creatures with a penchant for controlling the world around them, human beings developed a unique relationship with their surroundings. Understanding this special relationship between humans and their environment, which archaeologists, geographers, and other scholars often call “social landscapes,” is one of the most pressing issues facing us in the 21st century.
