ABSTRACT
In recent years, the idea of landscape has become increasingly important in archaeology, not just from an academic point of view but also in relation to the protection and management of sites and areas.1 Terms such as ‘the historic environment’ and ‘historic landscapes’ are widely used with almost reckless abandon, and seemingly attached to almost every research design or report on the archaeology of a chosen area. As so often happens, an intractable term that defies close definition and lacks consensual understanding is among the most widely used. And why not? Everyone knows what the landscape is when they are surrounded by it, even if packaging it for academic analysis is more difficult.
