General Themes: Introduction

From the chronologically ordered research areas above, it is possible to define themes for co-ordinated investigation of the Wolds landscape. Each involves the definition of a research focus at a different level of resolution, then lists associated methods. This has been chosen over a more purely 'thematised' approach (for example defining 'natural' landscapes, economic landscapes, communication landscapes, ritual landscapes, cognitive landscapes) as the chosen divisions flow more easily from the structure of the research areas defined above.

However, two points should be remembered in this process of distillation. First, although this may be a necessary starting point, our list is far from exhaustive and its emphases, specific content and even overall structure will no doubt alter as the project develops. Secondly, although it is useful to distinguish between various themes for the sake of initial clarity, this should not obscure the fact that it is the relationships between these components which will be of greatest interest. Thus comparisons across periods (in the process potentially calling into question the very utility of that initial periodisation) and between different spheres (e.g. mortuary practices and settlement studies) must be a major focus of attention. By the same token, we will need to pose questions which run across different levels of spatial resolution (for example, analysing trends in spatial patterning across a landscape block - inter-relationships - alongside those related to the development of an individual settlement within such a block - intra-relationships). Furthermore, there is no reason to expect simple correlations in patterning to emerge in each case, for example between burial and agricultural activities, or between control of space in field systems and that within settlements or houses.

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