Towards an Integration of Historical Trees into the Mediterranean Archaeological Record: Case Studies from Central Israel

Itamar Taxel

Environmental Archaeology, 2023, vol. 28, issue 2, 86-109

Abstract: The concept of more-than-human agency maintains that objects, animals and plants can act as agents with various effects on people and that trees specifically may play a role in shaping and changing spaces (hence constituting a ‘planty agency’). Also, trees usually outlive several human generations and can therefore be termed ‘historical trees.’ Although this issue is especially relevant for the discipline of landscape archaeology, no systematic methodology has been developed as to how to integrate historical trees in the archaeological documentation of sites and landscapes. Furthermore, there is no scholarly consensus about acknowledging historical trees as legitimate targets for archaeological research from the outset. In this study it is claimed that historical planted (and sometimes wild) trees form relics of intra- and (mainly) inter-settlement cultural landscapes of the recent past. Hence, historical trees can be treated as arboreal evidence that should be interpreted alongside the cultural/material evidence. The great potential of historical trees for archaeological and historical research is demonstrated by seven case studies from Israel’s coastal region which represent various spatial and functional contexts dated to the late medieval, Ottoman and British Mandate periods. Based on these examples a basic methodology for the documentation of historical trees is suggested.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14614103.2021.1877512 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:28:y:2023:i:2:p:86-109

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/yenv20

DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2021.1877512

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Archaeology is currently edited by Tim Mighall

More articles in Environmental Archaeology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().