To tree, or not to tree? On the Empirical Basis for Having Past Landscapes to Experience

Our intention with this point of view paper is to help refocus an increasingly abstract and theoretically orientated Digital Humanities (DH). We will present a critical perspective on some of the problems and potentials relating to the visualisation of past (primarily non-urban) landscapes, with particular emphasis on the use of empirical evidence, from a combined environmental and archaeological point of view. We will outline some of the major challenges associated with reconstructing past landscapes from data, and give some examples of recent attempts to create platforms for addressing some of these issues. We will also briefly discuss the importance of landscape visualisation in the context of heritage management.SEA