Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée

John Bintliff presents the 2019 volume Central Places and Un-Central Landscapes: Political Economies and Natural Resources in the Longue Durée, edited by Giorgos Papantoniou and Athanasios K. Vionis as a special issue of the journal Land. Growing out of a session at the 2018 International Congress of Classical Archaeology in Cologne and Bonn, the book comprises fourteen papers, which Bintliff reviews in order alongside wider work in landscape archaeology.

He opens with the editors' introduction on Walter Christaller's central place theory, German Landeskunde, the rank-size rule, frontiers, landscape phenomenology, sacred landscapes and political economy, followed by Daniel Knitter and Oliver Nakoinz on centrality as movement and social network analysis. Five papers concern Cyprus. Papantoniou and Vionis present field survey in the Xeros Valley and the late antique secondary settlement at Kofinou. Jenny Webb studies Lapithos in the Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age, arguing that a narrow coastal strip with a small hinterland became central through the copper trade. Louise Steel discusses water and perception of the Cypriot landscape. Papantoniou and Giorgos Bourogiannis use GIS visibility and travel-cost analysis to link the Cypro-Archaic extra-urban sanctuary at Ayia Irini to the kingdom of Soloi rather than Lapithos. Jody Michael Gordon examines Nea Paphos and Salamis in early Roman Cyprus, arguing that coastal ports grew while inland towns declined.

Other chapters cover Etruscan Populonia, Greek marginal lands (eschatia), water harvesting in Egypt and Syria, Marseille and Arles, Roman mining in Moesia Superior, Byzantine bathhouses in Crete, and medieval towns in the Peloponnese. Papantoniou and Vionis close with remarks on bringing Cypriot archaeology into dialogue with wider Mediterranean scholarship.