The temporality of the landscape
1993/10/01 by Tim Ingold · 2,703 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Aesthetics #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Art #Epistemology #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #History #Linguistics #Meaning (existential) #Perspective (graphical) #Philosophy #Premise #Sociology #Space (punctuation) #Temporality #Visual arts
paper · doi:10.1080/00438243.1993.9980235
published in World Archaeology 25(2), 152-174 (Routledge)
openalex publication_date 1993/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
Landscape and temporality are the major unifying themes of archaeology and social‐cultural anthropology. This paper attempts to show how the temporality of the landscape may be understood by way of a ‘dwelling perspective’ that sets out from the premise of people's active, perceptual engagement in the world. The meaning of ‘landscape’ is clarified by contrast to the concepts of land, nature and space. The notion of ‘taskscape’ is introduced to denote a pattern of dwelling activities, and the intrinsic temporality of the taskscape is shown to lie in its rhythmic interrelations or patterns of resonance. By considering how taskscape relates to landscape, the distinction between them is ultimately dissolved, and the landscape itself is shown to be fundamentally temporal. Some concrete illustrations of these arguments are drawn from a painting by Bruegel, The Harvesters.
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