Page - 127 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

8 Water andDecentringUrbanism in theRomanPeriod 127 cernedwith thenarrative of conquest and the consolidation of power and control.17 Urbande- velopment is seenwithin the context of rationalmilitary, economic andgeographical concerns with lessconcernover thepeople living in theareaor the impactof the townsonthe landscape. As a consequence, urban development in the Roman periodwas often divorced from the pre- existinguses of the landscape. More recentdevelopments inarchaeological theoryhave seenmore critical perspectiveson issues relating to identity, landscapeandmateriality. Inparticular, therehasbeenanemphasis on bringing the different perspectives and approaches from processual and post-processual archaeology together into a more symmetrical arrangement so as to create a more balanced approach.18This symmetrical archaeologyallowsdifferentmethodologiesand typesofmaterial to come together and creates a fuller andmore holistic interpretation of the past. Thismight mean, for example, examining social perspectives of landscape, but also physical, economic, andgeographicalperspectivesandmethodologiesof landscape. Inbringing thesedifferentper- spectives together, we also need to think about the different ways inwhich they did interact. In particular, it is important to think about howmodern ontologies, the ways of seeing and organisingourworld,have influencedhowweapproach thearchaeologyof thepast;19 andalso whether we can access past ontologies where inhabitants saw and thought about the world differently. Connected with this task is thinking about the relationship between the ‘human- made’ and ‘non-human’world andhow they came together in away that influences lives and experiences. The study of buildings and settlements is crucial in urban archaeology, for exam- ple, but they cannot be separated from thewider landscape in which theywere constructed, andso it is necessary togive similar attention to ‘natural’ or ‘non-human’ componentsof these settlements. This emphasis on the role of the ‘natural’ or ‘non-human’within archaeology has encour- aged the advancement of the concept of post-humanism within archaeological studies.20 In post-humanism, it is argued thatbothhumanandnon-humancomponentsof theworld should be given equal value in studies of thepast, suchas in landscape and settlement studies, since all of themhadan impactonhuman lives andexperiences.21 This relationshipbetweenhuman and non-human is also complex because it has been argued that any human involvement or relationshipwithanunalteredcomponentof the landscape, for example,means that these fea- tures cannot be regarded as entirely natural.22 The issue of howwe understand landscape is also complex, with the term itself reflecting an entirely specific way of viewing and thinking about land, generated in the era of the post-medieval and early modern West. In studying towns,wecan thinkaboutnotonly thebuilt structuresandpeople,butalsoother components, includingwater.We can think about how thewater formed part of these settlements and the impact it had andhas on our understanding of themeaning of these sites. This is not only in termsofwater supply, suchaspipesandaqueducts, but all featuresofwater. Lookingatwater alsohelpsus address the issueof past ontologies, howwater formedpart of past experiences. This recognitionof theneedtomoveawayfromthisWesterndominancewithinurbanstud- ies is also linkedwith post-colonial influences and rethinking the role of the subaltern. These developments argue that non-Western forms of urban settlement should not be regarded as inferior toWestern formsofurbandevelopment.There isalsoaquestioningof theway inwhich urban settlements are placed in hierarchies of importance with many non-Western or early Westernurbansitesdescribedasproto-urbanrather thanurban;Westerncitiesarealsoseenas 17 E.g.Wacher 1995. 18Witmore 2007;Webmoor–Witmore 2008;Olsenet al. 2012. 19 DeLanda 2016. 20 E.g.Harris –Cipolla 2017. 21 E.g.Webmoor–Witmore 2008;Olsenet al. 2012. 22 E.g. Bradley 2000.