French writer Marcel Proust once said that the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. We in the field of cultural resources management see landscapes as a text of heritage. By approaching cultural landscape studies as the interaction between human beings and nature over time, we are able to fulfill our professional ethics to present to the public a fully informed reading.

The landscape approach in Cultural Resource Management (CRM) and archaeology is an increasingly important avenue for both academic research and contemporary heritage management. The need for heritage areas is both practical and social, including a desire for tourism, education, cultural heritage, or preservation of the landscape. Cultural landscape studies identify multiple interests and issues and combine not only tangible evidence of an important historical event, but also speak to the intangible qualities of the time through the telling of the everyday life of the people involved.