previous occupations. Most of the proponents of sequent occupance emphasize the
necessity of fieldwork to identify the ways that the land had been utilized by past
cultures. Past occupancy is reflected in the presence of structures from
previous cultures, alterations of the natural environment, etc. Such a reading of
the landscape reveals the practices and processes that combine to form the land-
scape in its present condition. Sequent occupance as a theory of geographical
development focuses on the relationship between human activity and the natural
environment, although there is no implicit assumption that the sequence is neces-
sarily continuous, or that successive occupations and uses are superior to those that
came previously.
The theory is in almost direct opposition to the intellectual position ofenviron-
mental determinism, because sequent occupance suggests that how cultures use
the landscape is not predominantly determined by the physical environment, but
rather is a product of the culture itself. Various cultures, in other words, interact
with the landscape based on their technological capacity, and itis that capacity,
not the environment, that dictates the human-landscape dynamic. Sequent occu-
pance is a conceptual component of many contemporary studies incultural
ecology, and both emerged from an emphasis on human ecology in the work of
some geographers in the early 20th century. In some cases the historical patterns
of settlement of a place may be partially revealed through a study of the local
toponymy, which frequently carries clues to the history of previous cultural occu-
pants as well as to a place’s former function on the landscape. Sequent occupance
continues to have a strong influence on studies in historical geography, and most
contemporary historical geographers engaged in holistic landscape studies would
subscribe to the basic principle of the theory, i.e., a landscape cannot be com-
pletely understood in a vacuum of time, and only a consideration of all past cul-
tural uses will result in a full picture of the relationship between human activity
and the physical environment.
Shatterbelt
A region of persistent political fragmentation due todevolutionand centrifugal
forces. The term has been applied by political geographers to a number of places
since the Second World War, especially East Central Europe, but also Southeast Asia,
the Middle East, and Africa. A synonymous phrase is “crush zone.” Shatterbelts
sometimes serve asbuffer zonesbetween hostile states or empires, and histori-
cally have played an important role ingeopolitics. Shatterbelts in the Middle East
Shatterbelt 307