engleski

Gradina – Imagined Landscapes of Scientific Pursuits

Landscape is a constructed world derived from shared cultural concepts. It is actively and meaningfully constituted and not simply a backdrop to human action. Furthermore, landscape is a medium through which people negotiate social relations. It is simultaneously the outcome and a reference point for all past and future actions. Landscape is constraining in a sense that material circumstances in which action takes place are already set. On the other hand, it is also enabling because humans have the capacity for taking creative action (Tilley 1994, Thomas 2001). The constructed landscape can be largely defined as ideational (Ashmore and Knapp 1999). It is constituted as a mental construct derived from cultural preconceptions and contingent upon meanings and values attached to the concept itself. The idea of a landscape construed in concept can just as plausibly be applied to lived landscapes and those conceptualized in scientific narratives. Archaeology, in particular, is a study of material remains of past actions and creates narratives with respect to its own notions of the world. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how traditional culture-historical framework conditions the interpretation of gradina and gradina landscape as a whole. Gradina is a term which encompasses a variety of late prehistoric monumental building projects with a high visual profile. Dominant, culture-historical framework operates within the bounds of essentialist, unchangeable and bounded entities. In accordance with culture historical view of the world gradinas are interpreted as fortifications, refuges and lookouts. Such an interpretation is a function of culture-historical sense of culture and culture change. It is an imagined archaeological landscape of discursive population movements, culture successions, fear and violence.

scientific narratives ; scientific paradigmes ; ideational landscapes

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