ABSTRACT
In theory, the study of cultural landscapes through time and space, using the discipline of landscape archaeology, ought to create some of the bestintegrated historical accounts that it is possible to write at the level of the locality or the region. In practice, however, the landscape archaeologist is often side-tracked, tempted into focusing on one period or a particular kind of site; moreover, the conditions of his or her employment may well mean that ‘research’ must concentrate on threatened sites or areas. In Britain, landscape archaeology is too readily seen as the servant of planning and development processes, rather than as the dominant integrative strategy for regional and local history and prehistory. Within our university system, landscape archaeology is rarely taught as a mainstream component of the course, despite its obvious practical advantages in encouraging students to think like archaeologists while carrying out nondestructive practical work. Too readily, academics see landscape archaeology as a grouping of techniques for carrying out off-site archaeology such as fieldwalking, surveying and the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
