This edited volume reflects on the multitude of ways by which humans
shape and are shaped by the natural world, and how Archaeology and its
cognate disciplines recover this relationship.
The structure and content of the book recognize Graeme Barker's
pioneering contribution to the scientific study of human-environment
interaction, and form a secondary dialectic between his many colleagues
and past students and the academic vista which he has helped define.
The volume comprises 22 thematic papers, arranged chronologically, each
a presentation of front-line research in their respective fields. They
mirror the scope of Barker's legacy through a focus on transitions in
the human-environment relationship, how they are enacted and perceived.
The assembled chapters illustrate how climate, demographic, subsistence,
social and ecological change have affected cultures from the
Palaeolithic to Historical, from North Africa and West-Central Eurasia
to Southeast Asia and China. They also chronicle the innovations and
renegotiated relations that communities have devised to meet and exploit
the many shifting realities involved with Living in the Landscape.
