S43-4

Integrating Historical, Remote Sensing, and Geochronological Data to Characterise and Date the Development of Upland Historic Landscapes

School of History, Classics & Archaeology, Newcastle University, United Kingdom

In the uplands of the Indo-Pacific region, traditional settlement and land-use practices have created historic landscapes with locally distinctive characteristics. In Hong Kong (HK), a regional heritage management focus on the coastal lowlands, compounded by legislation and archaeological practice prioritising discrete heritage resources over landscape- and GIS-based research, has left important upland cultural heritage barely studied, poorly understood, and potentially at risk. However, the application of high-resolution airborne remote sensing data is now revealing the true character and extent of past human exploitation of HK’s increasingly reforested uplands. Of particular interest are the relict cultivation terraces which blanket the upper slopes of the territory’s highest mountains are conventionally associated with a former tea industry. However, their morphological diversity and apparent stratigraphic relationships suggest several phases of development and perhaps multiple functional and/or cultural associations. The European Commission-funded “CaDHoKUHL” project* targets this knowledge gap via an innovative GIS-based interdisciplinary approach synergising historical research, remote sensing, scientific dating, geosciences, and digital geospatial analysis. The aim is to elucidate the character of pre-colonial landscape exploitation in HK’s uplands, and model and explain landscape change through time. The project also hopes to serve as a pilot study, showcasing an approach applicable to the wider Indo-Pacific region. This paper begins by placing the project in its regional historical and archaeological context, then outlines the methodology used to map, spatially analyse, date, and interpret features. Finally, two case studies are presented that focus on HK’s upland terraced landscapes and illustrate how this research is unlocking the character, complexity, and chronology of pre-colonial upland land use.