The paper discusses the two rather controversial approaches to the landscape in prehistorie archaeology. First, the physieallandscape is treated as the arena of subsistenee activities, second, the ... Show moreThe paper discusses the two rather controversial approaches to the landscape in prehistorie archaeology. First, the physieallandscape is treated as the arena of subsistenee activities, second, the 'symbolie landscape' construeted by societies as the context of their soeial and spiritual lives. It is subsequently discussed how many pitfalls there are not so much in the empirical reeonstruction of the physical environment, but especial/y in the attempts to understand the man-land relationships and their transformations on the very long term: Ethnographic analogy has the danger to degrade prehistory to a clone of subrecent societies and to deprive it of its originality. Ethnocentrism brings modern values in. Ecological determinism reverses the causes and effects. The second part gives an outline of the man-nature relations in the Lower Rhine bas in since the last lee Age as far as empirical data allow. It is the story of the 'domestication' of the landscape. Af ter the small-scale reelamations of the Neolithic the forests were rigorouslv opened up in the first millennium cal. BC by the plough farmers of the Bronze Age. The so-called Celtic field system of the subsequent first millennium can be conceived as a measure to resto re sustainability on the poor upland coversand landscapes. A restricted number of demographic data together with the long term environmental impact registrations of pol/en diagrams allow us to follow the dynamics of environment and society over the last seven or even more millennia. Show less
