What is Landscape Archaeology?

In archaeology, this is a way of thinking, a way of looking at archaeological and historical sites which views them in the wider context of the landscape in which they sit. This view allows the researcher to bring together a number of sites into a coherent model of what was going on at any one time across the city. Going further, it also allows us to see the changing nature of a particular landscape, for example the changing character of the rural areas surrounding Liverpool, from scattered farmsteads in the early Medieval period, through enclosure hedgerows and walls, to the encroachment of the urban areas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

So that’s what this site is all about. Based as it is around the various maps, and interconnecting hyperlinks, Liverpool Landscapes allows us to take a wider look at the city and its surrounding region, while recognising the component landscapes which make it up, and the monuments, buildings and roads which in turn make up these smaller areas. What must always be remembered is that despite the lines on the map, the individual areas can not strictly be defined in this way, and nor should they. The ‘Docklands’ area of course extends out onto the river, and what might be classed as the ‘Inner Suburbs’ overlap all over the city with the ‘Outer Suburbs’. Neither are the areas uniform. Within the Inner Suburbs, for example, are the small Victorian terraces originally built for the factory workers streaming into Liverpool from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Europe and other parts of England. This area also contains large modern car dealerships, clubs, and other buildings less than twenty years old. These are all part of the story of the developing landscape. Finally, don’t forget that the same building that were built and used over 150 years ago are still there, being re-used for flats, shops and other very different purposes. This is all part of that same story, all part of the landscape.

My hope is that this site conveys some of the nature of the changing landscape, and the way I myself like to look at the changing history of this city.