แนวคิดทฤษฎี "ภูมิทัศน์ทางโบราณคดี" กับงานโบราณคดีไทย

บทคัดย่อ

Landscape archaeology studies the relationship between humans and their environments in the past. That is, it does not only focus on natural world but also consider the natural environment as a contributor to social development, including culture, politics, economics, and religion. This paper aims to reveal the understanding of landscape archaeology in Thailand, and attempts to explain the development of this approach. Results indicate that contemporary landscape archaeology in Thailand can be classified under two distinct approaches: (1) A nature-focused group, which emphasizes the processes of natural environment as the important influencer on human settlements. Thus, it clearly corresponds to the Geoarchaeological approach.  (2) A culture-focused group, which sees the landscape as a stage of built environment by humans, such as city plans, orientation of temples, distance between sites and natural sources. These built environments are seen to be determined by cultural factors and the landscapes are shaped to respond to the people. Spatial analysis is frequently applied in this group. Notably, both approaches retain the principles of cultural landscape that focus on the interaction between humans and built environments (both physical and cultural landscapes). However, the methodology and conceptual framework of the two approaches are rarely combined,  thus limiting the reconstruction of past cultures in Thai archaeology.