Places, perceptions, rethinking landscapes INTRODUCTION This paper is an elaborationof one of the chapters in our Rethinking.Wetldnd Archaeology (Van de Noort & O'Sullwan 2006), and concerns the archaeological study of wetland landscapes. In this book, we argue that many approaches to the archaeology of wetlands have failed to influence our peers and colleagues in the broader field of landscape archaeology and, indeed,archaeology itself, and thus the great promise of wetland archaeology remains unfulfilled (Coles 2001). This failure to influence and inform the broader archaeological debates can be attributed to three aspects of currentresearch in the landscape archaeology of wetlands. First, many research projectsremain de- contextualized geographically, as if wetlands were islands out at sea, rather than surrounded by non- wetland landscapes.Second, wetland archaeology frequently appear as being de-contextualized in time, as if wetlands were timeless landscapes, disconnected from the changes surrounding them. Third, most wetland landscape projects are disconnectedfrom current theoretical debates in archaeology and are thus not actively attempting to contribute to contemporary archaeological debate. This critique does not originate with ourselves,, but with external commentators who, for example, when reviewing compilations of wetland research papers or conferenceproceedings, comment on this multi-period isolationism of wetland archaeology (eg Evans 1990). From thesecritiques, it is apparent that the potential benefits of wetland archaeology to broader debates are fully recognized, but that wetland archaeologists must interact fully with current theoretical debatesif that potential is to be realized(eg Scarre1989; Tilley 1997; Haselgrove et al 2001). Recently, similar criticism has beenechoed from within the field of wetland archaeology (eg Gearey 2002). The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how such a (re-)engagement with mainstream landscape boundaries and tasks: in wetland archaeology ROBERT VAN DE NOORT and AIDAN O'SULLIVAN archaeology could be achieved. We needto start with a consideration of the meaning and etymology of the words 'landscape' and 'wetland', as the way in which we understand these terms in archaeological research has beenchanging.'Sfe will subsequently look at how we should reconsider the archaeological study of wetland landscapes, and finally, provide a casestudy of how this reconsideration can be made to work. .LANDSCAPE' \7hat is a'landscape'? The Oxford EnglishDictionary defines the word as 'a view or prospect of natural inland scenery,such as can be taken in at a glance from one point of view; a piece of country scenery' and 'a picture representing natural inland scenery, as distinguishedfrom a sea picture, a portrait, etc'. The duality of meaning can be explained by considering the origin of the word. Etymologically, the term originated in the Dutch language (landscbap or landscap) sometime during the Middle Ages, it was adopted during the renaissance for a particular genre of painting and was only then adopted into English towards the very end of the sixteenth century. The Oxford English Dictionary names Richard Haydocke (rn Lomazzo's (G. P.) Tracte containing the artes of curious paintinge) as the first person to use the word landscape in English in 1598 in the sentence: 'In a table donne by Crsar Sestius where hee had painted Landskipes'. In its original medieval meaning, however, landscape had nothing to do with painting or art, but was a geopoliticalidea, or an ideologicalconcept.In this original sense, the suffix -schap or -scap did not mean uiew or perspectiue,but skill or ability as in the modern English workman ship and craftsmanship (and surviving in its corresponding Dutch word ambachtschap), or in the German word 'Wirtschaft ('economy').Thus, the original meaning of the word landscape was the perception of the ability to live in, on and from the land. The Dutch planner Hans 79