Introduction

Abstract

Maritime landscapes, when combined with historical information and statistics, are maps of human behavior in the long term. Approaching maritime archaeology from a landscape perspective reveals patterns of human behavior that can be empirically studied to reveal the constantly evolving process of negotiation within society and with the natural world. As we can elicit and study the processes by which maritime archaeological sites are formed, so can we too the processes that form and perpetuate maritime social and archaeological landscapes from the past to our interpretation of them in the present. The Formation of Maritime Archaeological Landscapes presents a global perspective of current research in maritime archaeological landscape formation processes . Subject maritime landscapes include both those that develop contemporaneously with real and/or potential component archaeological sites as well as modern landscapes that develop through evolving interaction with select archaeological sites. The organization of the chapters follows an arc from theoretical discourse to application of landscape formation interpretation. Detailed case studies will look at the development of functional paradigms for incorporating archaeological, sociocultural, and historical data into the formation of maritime landscapes; interdisciplinary scientific study of archaeological site components to elicit information on maritime behavior not visible in traditional artifact analyses; and modern uses of maritime archaeological landscapes that remake and redefine meaning in archaeological discourse.