Peter Fowler

A limestone landscape from the air : le Causse Méjean, Languedoc, France

Reconnaissance on the southern edge of the Massif Central is studying field evidence which deepens appreciation of the present-day upland French landscape as not only ‘sauvage’ but also the product of long-term use.

What price the man-made heritage?

British archaeology and British archaeologists now live in a fast-changing world. There are new administrative agencies and frameworks, major reviews of monument protection (above, this issue) and of university archaeology (last issue), a fundamental shift in the economics of the countryside (current issues passim), and a new mood in which an entrepreneurial ‘heritage industry’ has become conspicuous. In 1986 the Environment Select Committee of the House of Commons investigated historic buildings and ancient monuments. Peter Fowler here reports the attitudes it brought to its study of archaeology and history, and the assessments of their value that it made.