Toward a cultural landscape atlas: Representing all the landscape as cultural

Many government and non-statutory registers utilise point datasets to represent cultural heritage places. An effect of this approach is to emphasise that cultural heritage comprises a series of spatially discrete material remains or 'sites', suggesting discrete locations which are somehow disconnected from their broader historical and landscape contexts. We advocate an alternative in which spatial representation of heritage is set within a cultural landscape framework, acknowledging that all parts of the landscape have inter-connected cultural histories, associations and meanings resulting from long-term and ongoing human-environmental interactions. Results from a collaborative cultural heritage research project undertaken at Culgoa National Park in Australia demonstrate the advantage of this approach. The mapping products produced by the work comprise an interactive electronic DVD Atlas and hard copy maps. Both focus on meeting the management needs of field-based park staff.