[...]... the delta region of these rivers and the Scheldt river To the south and east of the MDS region lie the loamy sand and loess regions of Belgium, southern Dutch Limburg and the German Rhineland.Together these features define the MDS region as a geographical entity With respect to geographical situation, long-term structure of the agrarian economy, and potential for archaeological study, the MDS region... history of poor adaptation to a fragile environment, leading to soil depletion in record time But equally important is the absence of emotional bonds with the landscape in which one lives, of collective sentiments of belonging and identity, of being a group settled in the same place and sharing a history Only in their absence do these phenomena become visible to us; and only the dramatic effects of their... manner: The village economy of the North European Plain presents the most stable social and economic system evident in the whole of Europe in the first millennium Isolated from the disruptive effects of the developing consumer markets of the Mediterranean and constrained by the rigours of the landscape in which they worked, the peasant communities had little incentive to embrace innovation or to aspire to. .. that the definition of Central European Hallstatt and La Tène cultures as Hochkulturen has also had an impact on the perception of the societies further to the north.This has only become stronger with the application of core/periphery and world-systems models since the 1980s .The designation of the west Hallstatt region, and later the Marne-Moselle region, as core areas (themselves peripheries in the. .. valuation of material conditions by the groups under study – and a view from the outside – the changing ‘availabilities’ of material conditions – are necessary to build a complementary and diachronic understanding of people’s dynamic and reciprocal relationships with the landscape To return to the theme of this study as described in the first section, let me formulate two sets of questions whose consideration... Montana, chose to rename itself Joe For the inhabitants the whimsical idea that mail sent from the local post office would be stamped with the name of one of the great heroes of American football – Joe Montana – easily outweighed the loss of their original name.2 1 Raban 1996 the railroad company that founded the town in the 2 Raban 1996, 17, 98-99 The old name itself was a con- 1910s traction of Isabel... vulnerability to soil degradation The geomorphological situation is to a certain extent also the result of anthropogenic factors Activities such as the removal of the forest vegetation has affected soil formation processes and hydrological conditions At least from the Early Iron Age onwards this led in extreme cases to the formation of local sand drifts.7 Peat cutting in historic times has also contributed to. .. the 1920s and 1930s excavation techniques and recording methods greatly improved, but because the topsoil had to be removed by hand it was impossible to expose large areas Institutional interest was also scant, and in comparison to the sandy regions of Drenthe in the northern Netherlands the number of excavations was small and the extent of the excavated areas restricted.25 The rescue excavations to. .. be understood in the terms of our contemporary view of the world John Barrett has described this position succinctly as ‘human responses to given material conditions must…be regarded as culturally mediated’.30 It may be useful at this point to pay another quick visit to Montana and its homesteaders to illustrate the difference between these two conceptualisations of landscape The history of the homesteaders... Europe .The location of the Meuse-Demer-Scheldt region in relation to the western Hallstatt (southern Germany, eastern France) and La Tène (Marne-Moselle) regions Here the impression is created of communities living under harsh environmental conditions; they are too busy carving out a living for themselves to notice the innovations and new power structures that are developing just beyond the horizon It appears, .  Editorial board: Prof. dr. E.M. Moormann Prof. dr.W. Roebroeks Prof. dr. N. Roymans Prof. dr. F.Theuws Other titles in the series: N. Roymans (ed.) From the Sword to the Plough Three Studies on. described as the study of the ‘cultural biography’ of the landscape. 27 This concept enables the researcher to consider the multiple, historical dimensions of the landscape from antiquity up to the present,. archaeology has been one of the most vibrant fields of theoretical and empirical research of the last decade, and there has been a great proliferation of publications on the theme.There are consid- erable