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Geospatial modeling of pedestrian transportation networks: A case study from precolumbian Oaxaca, Mexico
... Therefore, the approach currently deemed most accurate and reliable for archaeological site prediction is maximum entropy which accounts for the uncertainty and incompleteness of archaeological data by introducing pseudoabsence data, thereby overcoming the lack of true-absence data (Li et al., 2022;Wachtel et al., 2018;Yaworsky et al., 2020). White and Barber (2012) provide a different approach with their "From Everywhere to Everywhere" (FETE) model which uses Dijkstra's popular shortest path algorithm to predict travel probabilities. They suggest that the model might also be used to predict settlement locations by identifying junctions of the modelled trade routes. ...
... Using the FETE model, Crabtree et al. (2021)predicted optimal "superhighways" of the first peopling of Sahul. Similar to White and Barber (2012), they suggest that high-traffic areas that have been frequently travelled potentially indicate the locations of settlements. The least-cost paths created by the FETE model could therefore be used as input for machine learning or linear regression models and significantly improve those methods for site prediction. ...
... However, for machine and deep learning to be successful and meaningful for archaeological site prediction, large training data sets of site locations in various environments are necessary, but those are still rare globally. A combination of LCP modelling using the Fig. 10 The Bronze Age settlement Tell Brak from the ground (left) and on CORONA images (right) FETE model as presented by White and Barber (2012) and Crabtree et al. (2021) and machine learning or linear regression would be a more efficient and less computationally demanding alternative. The approach presented here adds further to this line of research by including the partial evidence from known route segments and predicting the most probable site locations based on route intersections. ...
Networks are increasingly used to describe and analyse complex archaeological data in terms of nodes (archaeological sites or places) and edges (representing relationships or connections between each pair of nodes). Network analysis can then be applied to express local and global properties of the system, including structure (e.g. modularity) or connectivity. However, the usually high amount of missing data in archaeology and the uncertainty they cause make it difficult to obtain meaningful and robust results from the statistical methods utilised in the field of network analysis. Hence, we present in this paper manual and computational methods to (1) fill gaps in the settlement record and (2) reconstruct an ancient route system to retrieve a network that is as complete as possible. Our study focuses on the sites and routes, so-called hollow ways, in the Khabur Valley, Mesopotamia, during the Bronze and Iron Age as one of the most intensively surveyed areas worldwide. We were able to predict additional sites that were missing from the record as well as develop an innovative hybrid approach to complement the partly preserved hollow way system by integrating a manual and computational procedure. The set of methods we used can be adapted to significantly enhance the description of many other cases, and with appropriate extensions successfully tackle almost any archaeological region.
... Affordances can be quantified as the energy expenditure required to travel through raster cells, where values represent cost (Conolly and Lake 2006). A common method in both archaeology and ecology for modelling mobility, pathways, and energy expenditure is Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis, which has been extensively explored in archaeological literature (see, e.g., Whitley and Hicks 2003;Howey 2011;White and Barber 2012;Herzog 2022;Lewis 2021). While this has led to a strong theoretical and methodological foundation, it primarily focuses on land-based movement. ...
... However, this is generally limited to land-based movement and tends to exclude seafaring due to increased complexity in the resulting model (e.g. Whitley and Hicks 2003;Verhagen and Whitley 2011;Llobera et al. 2011;Howey 2011;White and Barber 2012). The reasons for this are wellknown and mostly related to the difficulties of combining two very different methods of transportation-movement that has been often pointed out in the literature. ...
... Nonetheless, the increase in accessibility to computational power allowed the exploration of many different alternatives, improving the methodological and theoretical background of cost-based analysis. One of these approaches is the so-called "From Everywhere to Everywhere" (FETE) approach (White and Barber 2012). Compared to traditional LCPs or many other workaround solutions, such as the "flow" of movement using hydrological modelling (Llobera et al. 2011), this method does not require the existence of an origin or a destination. ...
The transportation of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age ivory raw materials and artefacts across the Mediterranean has been in the focus of archaeological research for over a century now. However, tracing the flow of ivory has mostly been restricted to traditional theoretical models of raw materials distribution deriving from socio-culturally centred considerations. Environmental conditions, potential transportation networks and dissemination routes have not yet been considered decisive for the spread of ivory raw material from the African shores and the eastern Mediterranean towards the Iberian Peninsula. Implementing computational environmental and archaeological modelling, we present a fully reproducible quantitative approach to estimate potential communication and transportation networks based on environmental covariates. We deploy a Network Analysis model and a predictive model based on Least Cost Path density to propose a potential land- and sea-based movement corridor for the western Mediterranean Basin that could have enabled the cultural spread of resources during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Using the presented model and the open-source data underlying the analyses, distribution patterns of multiple material resources from different chronological subsets or regions can be developed, which will contribute to understanding prehistoric human patterns across the Mediterranean.
... In addition, land cover should be considered, as it significantly impacts walking energy consumption [15,29]. Due to a lack of high-resolution paleovegetation data in this area, modern vegetation cover data was found to be an acceptable compromise [12,29,56]. ...
... In addition, land cover should be considered, as it significantly impacts walking energy consumption [15,29]. Due to a lack of high-resolution paleovegetation data in this area, modern vegetation cover data was found to be an acceptable compromise [12,29,56]. As a result, this study relied on the People's Republic of China Vegetation Map for surface cover data. ...
... As a result, this study relied on the People's Republic of China Vegetation Map for surface cover data. To account for varying resistance effects, assign a reasonable terrain factor [η in Eq. (1)] to each vegetation type [29,58]. The forest factor was set to 1.5, shrub and farmland to 1.2, and water system to 1.8. ...
Reconstructing ancient transportation networks is critical to studying past human mobility patterns. China’s Haidai region was a thriving political and economic hub during the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. We used GIS spatial analysis techniques to build a “Settlement Interaction Model” based on archaeological data from the Haidai region during the Bronze and Early Iron Age (Shang Dynasty, Western Zhou Dynasty, Spring & Autumn Period, and Warring States period). The eight-level road network maps with traffic attributes were distinguished based on topography and settlement size. The total lengths of the road networks were estimated to be 19,112 km in the Shang Dynasty, 35,269 km in the Western Zhou Dynasty, 51,555 km in the Spring & Autumn Period, and 77,456 km in the Warring States Period, with the average road flows of 6.6, 31.7, 42.8, and 75.5, respectively. The Z score and one-sample t-test (p < 0.01) confirmed the reliability of the reconstructed road networks. The Shang Dynasty saw the sporadic appearance of simple road routes. More complex routes emerged during the Western Zhou Dynasty and Spring & Autumn Period. The road networks were finally built during the Warring States Period. The development of road networks was closely related to population growth and urbanization. Exploring methods for reconstructing road networks may help us uncover ancient road networks and better understand ancient cultural exchanges.
... Several archaeological studies apply this approach by generating LCPs to a predefined number of closest neighbours. The number k of nearest neighbours considered varies from 10 (Bevan and Wilson 2013) to 5 (White 2012). This simple method has three drawbacks: (i) the resulting networks typically consist of several unconnected components, especially if sites are clustered, (ii) in such networks, the shortest path between two nearby locations, e.g. the path between a site and its neighbour k+1, sometimes is a lot longer than the direct shortest path, (iii) directed edges are more appropriate for this model because the "is closest neighbour" relationship is not symmetrical (see also Jiménez-Badillo, this volume). ...
... Several methods have been published for generating hub-andspoke networks, when only a starting point (i.e. the hub location) and the cost grids are given. For instance, calculating a huge number of LCPs connecting a starting point with possible destinations is an obvious approach to detect travel arteries, i.e. raster cells that are traversed by lots of LCPs (White and Barber 2012). The resulting travel arteries close to the starting point are apparent, but obvious destination locations are less distinct. ...
... So this model assumes that two types of roads of different importance existed at a certain point in time. An example for the well-known Nutscheid-road is given in the south-east of Figure 4. White and Barber (2012) propose the "From Everywhere to Everywhere" model that connects all points on a regularly-spaced grid to each other by LCPs, thus generating a network of travel arteries, i.e. paths trodden most frequently. This results in many disconnected short or parallel routes, it is hard to identify possible nodes. ...
Network research has recently been adopted as one of the tools of the trade in archaeology, used to study a wide range of topics: interactions between island communities, movements through urban spaces, visibility in past landscapes, material culture similarity, exchange, and much more. This Oxford Handbook is the first authoritative reference work for archaeological network research, featuring current topical trends and covering the archaeological application of network methods and theories. This is elaborately demonstrated through substantive topics and case studies drawn from a breadth of periods and cultures in world archaeology. It highlights and further develops the unique contributions made by archaeological research to network science, especially concerning the development of spatial and material culture network methods, and approaches to studying long-term network change. This is the go-to resource for students and scholars wishing to explore how network science can be applied in archaeology through an up-to-date overview of the field.
... To aid in this study, archaeologists have repeatedly turned to geographic information system (GIS) technology and tools to model and display landscape data (Álvarez Larrain and McCall 2019;Howey and Brouwer Burg 2017;Jones 2017;Lock and Pouncett 2017;McCoy and Ladefoged 2009). An increasingly popular application of this tool set is the use of least cost path (LCP) analysis to model travel routes through a landscape (Herzog 2013;Howey 2007;Guimil-Farina and Parcero-Oubina 2015;Lothrop et al. 2018;Newhard et al. 2008;Rahn 2005;Taliaferro et al. 2010;White and Barber 2012;White and Surface-Evans 2012). LCP has been used extensively in archaeology and related fields to construct digital models of movement and networking (Verhagen et al. 2019). ...
... Cost itself does not have a fixed definition but is determined by the analyst from study to study (White 2015). LCP analysis is commonly used to calculate travel across a terrestrial environment based on the cost of slope (Anderson and Gillam 2000;Herzog and Posluschny 2008;Lothrop et al. 2018;White and Barber 2012). White breaks LCP down into three parts: "generating a friction surface, calculating a cumulative cost surface based on a specific origin for travel, and constructing an efficient route from a specific destination back to the origin" (2015:408). ...
... Using a combination of the data accumulated to this point, the path of least cost is calculated from the origin point to a specified destination (White 2015). The reliance on origin and destination points becomes problematic when site locations are not known in advance (Bellavia 2006;White and Barber 2012;Whitley and Hicks 2003). GIS software dependents on known points in order to model routes (White and Barber 2012). ...
The use of the Cost Path tool in geospatial technologies has allowed for the creation of digital models that can predict past behaviors and movements. While often applied to terrestrial landscapes, these models have gained increasing popularity in modeling movement across maritime and composite landscapes. The methods used in this article, first laid out by Gustas and Supernant, allow for the creation of a model not reliant on known origin and destination points but rather utilize a matrix of points placed arbitrarily around the edge of the study area. This article applies the principles of maritime least cost path analysis to create a predictability model for travel in the upper Great Lakes during the Nipissing high paleolake level event. The result of this paper is a heat density map that can identify (1) high probability travel corridors and (2) coastal areas of high probability travel.
... To address the issues of deterministic single-path models, more complex least cost methods that characterize human movement as a process of connectivity have been developed, with the effect of creating outputs that encompass a wider range of movement possibilities and that better incorporate the realities of moving across known and unknown landscapes (Branting, 2012;Howey, 2011;Llobera et al., 2011;Lock et al., 2014;McRae, 2006;McRae et al., 2008;White & Barber, 2012). While these approaches have contributed to a better representation of human movement and can be used as an alternate, or complement, to traditional LCA (e.g., Howey, 2011), they continue to rely on the same underlying assessment of cost (Howey & Burg, 2017). ...
... Most frequently, this is done by applying a single-or multi-criteria cost algorithm to a digital raster surface (Howey, 2011). While much research has been dedicated to improving and developing cost algorithms (e.g., Campbell et al., 2019;Herzog, 2010;Herzog, 2014, Kantner, 2012Verhagen & Jeneson, 2012;White & Barber, 2012), there has been little discussion about which costs are most pertinent to people when they move. ...
... To understand the consequences of currency selection, some researchers have directly compared time-and energy-based LCPs (Güimil-Fariña & Parcero-Oubiña, 2015;Herzog, 2014;Kantner, 2012;Verhagen & Jeneson, 2012). Elsewhere, researchers have combined cost functions to better reflect human decision-making that is influenced by both time and energy (White, 2012;White & Barber, 2012). These efforts have produced inconsistent results in regard to the effect of selecting one type of cost over others; some have found significant variability between timeand energy-based LCPs and others have found none. ...
Least cost analysis (LCA) has emerged as a favored geospatial method used by archaeologists to model potential pathways of movement. To produce increasingly effective least cost models, we must more thoroughly consider the role that energetics have played throughout human history and understand how physiological conditions tied to energetics, such as fatigue, influence peoples’ decisions when moving. We illustrate this need by modeling a physically demanding case study from the American Southwest and demonstrate that the interpretive consequences of using time- versus energy-based cost function can have meaningful impacts on archaeological reconstructions of the past. Therefore, to better inform the selection of least cost functions in LCA, regardless of the material record in a specific study context, we present a theoretically informed strategy for classifying whether time or energy was a more pertinent cost to past movers by focusing on the role of fatigue and its influence on energetically efficient decision making.
... We created individual cost surfaces for each site of the samples to calculate Least Cost Paths (LCPs) between different sets of origins and destinations. LCPs are models that calculate the most efficient route between two or more locations in geographical space (Conolly and Lake, 2006) and are a common tool in urban planning, ecology and archaeology (for example, see Balbi et al., 2021;Fabrício Machado and Miranda, 2022;Fjellström et al., 2022;Howey, 2011;Verhagen and Jeneson, 2012;White and Barber, 2012). Cost surfaces were created using the package leastcostpath written by Joseph Lewis (Lewis, 2023a). ...
... The third approach is based on a Least Cost Path analysis that connects each set of sites into a so-called FETE (from everywhere to everywhere) approach (Bilotti et al., 2024a;Lewis, 2021;White and Barber, 2012). Using environmental covariates in spatial analysis of site distribution patterns has been widely applied in archaeological research during the past years (for example, Carrero-Pazos et al., 2019;Kempf, 2021;Kempf and Günther, 2023). ...
During the European Neolithisation Process, a pivotal facet of Neolithic population dynamics lay in the cap-
ability of agro-pastoral communities to procure high-quality raw material for stone tools. Whether this material
was sourced from local geological units or got transported via large-scale communication networks is, however,
not yet fully understood. To trace the distribution patterns of Early Neolithic resource dispersal, we present a
multicomponent network analysis and the first resource dependency model of Middle Eocene lithic records
across western Europe. The model builds on topographic landscape permeability and Bartonian silicite dispersal
and estimates the Chaine Operatoire (CO) sequences from i) directly sourced raw material based on accumu-
lative cost functions; ii) chronologically differentiated network models; iii) a probability model of potential site
distributions based on a point process model (PPM). We resume that early Neolithic site locations were parti-
cularly targeted at connecting to the supraregional resource exchange network that originated from the Paris
Basin. Local resource exploitation predominated in the core region of Bartonian silicite distribution whereas
distant sites were located on or close to high-probability communication and network corridors. Particularly
striking is the differentiation highlighted by the CO segmentation towards the end of the Early Neolithic with
distinct patterns of clustered production, intermediate, and dispersed consumer sites. This indicates that major
production centres can be expected in close distance to the resource with high consumer density in secondary
centres in a star-shaped pattern across the study area.
... Least coast path analysis with R (LCP-R) Scotland's prehistoric rock art was probably created over centuries, if not millennia, and it cannot be assumed that people travelled between specific carving locations, or that particular panels formed the start or end points of journeys. Given these constraints, we applied a From-Everywhere-to-Everywhere (FETE) approach to explore mobility across the landscape [77]. Rather than determining the points between which movement occurs, this method calculates the shortest path from all points to all points in a dataset. ...
... For subdivided study areas (Dumfries and Galloway, Inverness, Kilmartin and Loch Tay), the process was developed both for each subarea and for the larger region in order to construct a more comprehensive and comparative picture of movement. Despite the limitations of the approach, our pilot study produced a range of local networks of optimal paths, based on a series of definable topographical features, illustrating which parts of the landscape were more likely to be traversed ( [77], p. 2687). Although these calculations were based on modern topographic basemaps, our multivariate approach and consideration of sea level changes in prehistory [59] revealed interesting patterns. ...
Prehistoric rock carvings are one of Scotland’s most enigmatic and poorly understood monument types. This article discusses the pioneering approach used by Scotland’s Rock Art Project to enhance understanding of the abstract motifs through multiscalar computational analyses of a large dataset co-produced with community teams. The approach can be applied to suitable rock art datasets from other parts of the world and has international relevance for rock art reserach. Our analysis incorporates data from across Scotland in order to investigate inter-regional differences and similarities in the nature and contexts of the carvings. Innovative application of complementary analytical methods identified subtle regional variations in the character of the rock art and motif types. This variability suggest an understanding of the rock art tradition that was widely shared but locally adapted, and reflects connections and knowledge exchange between specific regions.
... To model human travellers, we simulated scenarios of travel across Sahul using the From Everywhere To Everywhere modelling platform (White and Barber, 2012). Unlike standard least-cost path analyses, From Everywhere To Everywhere examines the costs of travelling across every cell on the landscape, assuming that people would use other decisions aside from minimizing travel costs when transecting a landscape. ...
... Coupling demographic expansion models with models of geophysical constraints and human decision-making would probably change estimates of expansion elsewhere. Because our dynamic model incorporates parameters contingent on local conditions, including the spatial patterns and magnitude of net primary production to estimate local carrying capacities, the distribution of water sources, and topographic complexity, emergent migration patterns would be highly site-specific (Dungan et al., 2018;White and Barber, 2012). In addition, both model components (cellular automaton þ superhighways probability) would require independent archaeological validation for the region under study. ...
Reconstructing the patterns of Homo sapiens expansion out of Africa and across the globe has been advanced using demographic and travel-cost models. However, modelled routes are ipso facto influenced by migration rates, and vice versa. We combined movement ‘superhighways’ with a demographic cellular automaton to predict one of the world’s earliest peopling events — Sahul between 75,000–50,000 years ago. Novel outcomes from the superhighways-weighted model include (i) an approximate doubling of the predicted time to continental saturation (~ 10,000 years) compared to that based on the directionally unsupervised model (~ 5,000 years), suggesting that rates of migration need to account for topographical constraints in addition to rate of saturation; (ii) a previously undetected movement corridor south through the centre of Sahul early in the expansion wave based on the scenarios assuming two dominant entry points into Sahul; and (iii) a better fit to the spatially de-biased, Signor-Lipps-corrected layer of initial arrival inferred from dated archaeological material. Our combined model infrastructure provides a data-driven means to examine how people initially moved through, settled, and abandoned different regions of the globe.
... For the extreme case of α = 1, the resulting road network is independent of the chosen connection order π so that effects of path dependence vanish. If, further, G is obtained from a digital elevation model (DEM) such that vertices correspond to cells and edge costs are based on the distance and slope between neighboring cells of the DEM, then we obtain as a special case of our model a network prediction based on least-cost path analysis (LCPA) [21,22,23,24]. For flat and uniform terrain, edge costs in this setting reduce to the Euclidean distances between adjacent cells so that connections are established by straight paths and redundant (i.e., close and approximately parallel) path segments are likely to emerge (see Fig. 1E). ...
... Thereon we compute for every pair of places mentioned in the IA a least-cost path. The paths converge in natural movement corridors that we treat as candidate road segments, inspired by an analysis in [21]. More precisely, we form the union over all paths and introduce additional junction nodes where path segments cross or join. ...
The construction of ancient road networks spanned generations and exhibits temporal path dependence that is not fully captured by established network formation models that are used to support archaeological reasoning. We introduce an evolutionary model that captures explicitly the sequential nature of road network formation: A central feature is that connections are added successively and according to an optimal cost–benefit trade-off with respect to existing connections. In this model, the network topology emerges rapidly from early decisions, a trait that makes it possible to identify plausible road construction orders in practice. Based on this observation we develop a method to compress the search space of path-dependent optimization problems. We use this method to show that the model’s assumptions on ancient decision making allow the reconstruction of partially known road networks from the Roman era in good detail and from sparse archaeological evidence. In particular, we identify missing links in the major road network of ancient Sardinia that are in good agreement with expert predictions.
... Las diferentes líneas de investigación actuales fueron definidas por P. Fábrega (2016) como "un alto en el camino", posicionándose a favor de la adaptación de la metodología al caso concreto de estudio. Otros autores, como M. Llobera (2020), plantean que los análisis basados en el uso de cálculos de rutas de menor coste (least cost paths) se agrupan principalmente en dos tipos: los trabajos que buscan la recuperación de "corredores naturales" en el paisaje (Wheatley et al., 2010, White y Barber, 2012 y otro tipo de análisis que buscan la reconstrucción de redes o caminos óptimos entre dos o más sitios (Fonte et al., 2017). Las puestas en común de estos autores y otros como I. Grau (2011) nos permiten concretar una serie de líneas de trabajo en relación con la movilidad que abordarían las siguientes temáticas: ...
... a modo de ejemplo Aceituno yUriarte, 2019; Bruggencate et al., 2016; Byrd et al., 2016;Conolly y Lake, 2006;Fábrega-Álvarez, 2016;Grau, 2011;Güimil-Fariña y Parcero- Oubiña, 2015;Llobera et al., 2011; Magnin et al., 2012;Murrieta-Flores, 2012;Murrieta-Flores et al., 2011;Señoran, 2017;White y Barber, 2012;Verhagen, 2013;Wheatley y Gillings, 2002). ...
The study evaluates the role played by connectivity during the Late Bronze Age in the Madrid countryside through the relationship between the sites, the cattle trails and the LCP. The proposal is based on the measurement with geographic information systems of the distance and the existing relationship between Cogotas I sites and passageways as a key locational factor within the nuclear area. The results reveal less than 500 meters of distance from the sites to the optimal routes. Therefore, we can point to connectivity as a locational decision of the Late Bronze Age communities in the geographic space studied.
El texto evalúa el papel que juega la conectividad durante el Bronce final en la campiña madrileña a través de la relación de yacimientos de dicha cronología con las vías pecuarias y los modelos de acumulación de desplazamiento óptimo (MADO). La propuesta parte de la medición mediante sistemas de información geográfica de la distancia y la relación existente entre sitio de Cogotas I y vías de paso como un factor locacional clave dentro del área nuclear. Los resultados nos muestran un resultado de menos de 500 metros de distancia entre los yacimientos y vías óptimas. Por tanto, podemos señalar la conectividad como una decisión locacional de las comunidades del Bronce final en el espacio geográfico estudiado.
... To perform this analysis, it is necessary to have starting and ending points. This approach is inspired by a previous work that utilized the From Everywhere to Everywhere (FETE) methodology, which calculates optimal routes between all points in the landscape (White and Barber 2012). In FETE, every point in a grid serves as both a starting and ending point, enabling comprehensive route calculations across the entire territory. ...
Despite the presence of a theoretical model describing the settlement patterns of Palaeolithic sites in Northwestern Iberia, it has not yet been empirically tested using statistical analysis. This study explores the settlement patterns of the Palaeolithic period in Northwestern Iberia within two regions that share similar chronology and research traditions: the Northern and Central Mountain ranges of Northwestern Iberia. Employing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial statistics, the methodology has provided robust empirical support for several aspects of the theoretical model. The study rigorously tested the theoretical model proposed in the existing literature using statistical analysis and a comprehensive dataset of 50 variables. The findings highlight significant regional distinctions in the settlement patterns of Palaeolithic sites within both areas of Northwestern Iberia. This research not only confirms certain hypotheses related to Palaeolithic site locations but also underscores the need for further examination and refinement of others, particularly considering the notable regional variations.
... Our analyses of water costs come from calculations of one-way pairwise least-cost analyses (LCAs) of travel time between each Ancestral Pueblo cultural site to each of the documented spring and stream water sources in their region ( Figure 3). Archaeologists use LCA to identify potential routes of travel between sites (e.g., Caseldine 2022; Hart et al. 2019;Herzog 2013;White and Barber 2012) and to serve as proxies for resource acquisition costs measured in distance, time, or energy (e.g., Ladefoged et al. 2019;McCoy et al. 2011;White and Surface-Evans 2012). LCA is amenable to modeling how droughts affect water acquisition costs at regional scales because water and cultural sites are found at fixed locations but are not uniformly distributed through time and space. ...
We developed a new approach to identify vulnerabilities to water insecurity across entire archaeological culture areas by combining a paleohydrological model of the sensitivites of hydrological systems to droughts with least-cost analyses of the costs to acquire domestic water. Using a custom Python script integrated into ArcGIS Pro software, we calculated the pairwise one-way cost in time for walking between 225 water sources and 5,446 Ancestral Pueblo cultural sites across the Jemez and Pajarito Plateaus of the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. This allowed us to identify whether periodic hydrological droughts occurring between AD 1100 and 1700 increased water acquisition costs across these regions. We found that hydrological droughts increased travel times in both regions to durations exceeding modern standards for water insecurity. Beginning in the fourteenth century, greater underlying hydrogeological sensitivities to droughts and the decline of a dual-residence pattern caused by population losses made the remaining aggregated communities of the Pajarito Plateau much more vulnerable to water insecurity than those on the Jemez Plateau. This would have upended long-standing relationships between communities and water on the Pajarito Plateau during a time when socioeconomic integration across the northern Rio Grande Valley pulled people toward valley bottoms.
... Various measures of cost include slope, speed, and metabolic cost (kilocalories). These can be used for a variety of analyses, including identifying a null model for determining the distribution of obsidian (King et al., 2011), likely travel corridors (Gustas & Supernant, 2017;Supernant, 2017), or the route with the least cost between two locations (Byrd et al., 2016;White & Barber, 2012). Leastcost analysis has been infrequently applied to boat travel. ...
Archaeological applications of transportation cost studies have largely focused on walking and walking carrying loads across the landscape. We present a similar analysis using GIS least cost analysis of paddling small traditional watercraft. These boats, built of bundles of tule reeds readily available from the San Francisco Bay’s ubiquitous marshes, share much in common with traditional reed boats used for riverine and seagoing travels in a wide range of settings throughout the world including ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Lake Titicaca. Based on available information on Native American tule reed balsa watercraft of the region, published boat and metabolic metrics and crowd-sourced metabolic measurements we build a model to estimate metabolic cost of transport for individuals, pairs of rowers and loads. Additionally, we derive estimates of efficiency to compare least-cost water travel to land travel between a series of Native American ethnohistoric village locations in the San Francisco Bay area. Finally, we identify shortcomings of this method and discuss possible solutions. Overall, the results reveal that in typical weather conditions boat travel will be more energetically efficient and faster, particularly when goods are being transported.KeywordsNorth AmericaArchaeologyGISNative AmericansTransportationWatercraftCalifornia
... For this, it is necessary to have a starting and arrival point. In response to this, we were inspired by a previous work that used a methodology based on the calculation of optimal routes between all points of the landscape, called FETE (From Everywhere to Everywhere) (White and Barber, 2012). In this work, an analysis was employed that uses all the points of a grid as starting points and at the same time as arrival points, in such a way that the calculation allows representing the territory covering everything and creating the least cost path. ...
Although a theoretical model for the settlement patterns of Galician Palaeolithic has been proposed in the last decades, it has not been statistically tested. The present paper aims to check whether this previous theoretical model can be verified statistically. For this purpose, a methodology based on the creation of a predictive model has been used in which the main environmental variables were analysed and their suitability for predicting the location of Palaeolithic sites statistically verified. The predictive model shows that the most accurate variables are elevation, slope, cost to potential hydrology, the cost to wetland areas, and visual prominence. The results demonstrated that the theoretical model was fulfilled in some of the variables previously proposed. Thus, we have shown the usefulness of this approach to test hypotheses and the results obtained open new possibilities of analysis in the study of the Palaeolithic sites in NW Iberia.
... Sua mobilidade é complexa e cheia de significados. A sociologia da mobilidade Guarani foi fator fundamental para o modo de organização social e territorial, tema bastante discutido pela arqueologia desde a metade do século XX, pelo menos (Soares, 1996;Pissolato;Noelli, 1993 A modelagem da rede de caminhos foi realizada através do software ArcGis Pro, tendo sido utilizado o método "from everywhere to everywhere" (White & Barber, 2012 (Serrano, 1937 (Noelli, 1993). ...
In this work I use GIS tools (geographical information systems) for modeling the
possible Pre-Columbian Guarani paths in the Rio Grande do Sul State, southern
Brazil. It is shown some characteristics of the Guarani way of life, its cosmology and
the importance of mobility for the Guarani way of being. It is also delivered the
elaboration and organization of a database containing the location of Guarani sites in the State. I also present the techniques used for the elaboration of the paths, called “from everywhere to everywhere” - FETE. Finally, from the collected data, I demonstrate the elaboration of the possible Guarani paths, the dialogue of this model with other research carried out in Rio Grande do Sul and discussion.
... Using GIS combined with other mapping and geospatial data provides a foundation to evaluate regional-scale research, determine polity boundaries (Sherman et al. 2010;Stoner 2012), and facilitate regional-scale analysis in evaluating travel routes (Carballo and Pluckhahn 2007;Hazell and Brodie 2012;Rosenswig and Martínez Tuñón 2020). The least cost path (LCP) analysis evaluates travel routes based on principles of how physical geography allows or restricts movement between known archaeological sites (Rosenswig and Martínez Tuñón 2020;White and Barber 2012). Archaeologists argue that people organize and locate themselves in such a way as to ease, constrict, or restrict access: roads serve as visual evidence of such interactions (Giddens 1984). ...
This article reports the material evidence of roads in the northwestern Maya Lowlands that were in use from the Middle Preclassic (800–300 BC) through the Late Classic (AD 700–900) period in Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexico. The study includes archaeological evidence recovered from field research in an area covering approximately 670 km ² and 618 recorded archaeological sites. It presents the physical characteristics of a series of piedmont paths that connected the region from the Usumacinta River to the Tulijá River, including large population centers such as Palenque and Chinikihá. The study uses a geographic information system (GIS) least cost path (LCP) analysis to identify the location of roads and how they relate to regional settlement patterns. It also tests the use of modern computational models to advance regional studies in the Maya area. Study results show how the Classic Maya adapted and appropriated the region's topography to facilitate movement, long-term settlement, and the building of landesque capital.
... Figure 3 shows an example for one of the starting points. Path distance and Dijkstra's algorithm have been used extensively when calculating cumulative energy expenditure and predicating movement of humans (Wood and Wood 2006;White and Barber 2012;Boulanger et al. 2021). In the case of GIS, the algorithm calculates a least cost path from a point of origin to all other locations on a Fig. 1 Example of avoidance areas mapped (in red) as all locations on the landscape with a 3% or greater density of oil and gas pads and access roads (in black) ...
Context
Wildlife avoid human disturbances, including roads and development. Avoidance and displacement of wildlife into less suitable habitat due to human development can affect their energy expenditures and fitness. The heart rate and oxygen uptake of large mammals varies with both natural aspects of their habitat (terrain, climate, predators, etc.) and anthropogenic influence (noise, light, fragmentation, etc.). Although incorporating physiological analyses of energetics can inform the impacts of both development and conservation, management decisions rarely incorporate individuals’ energetic requirements when deciding on locations for potential development.
Objectives
We aimed to estimate the change in expected energy expenditure, numerically and spatially, for mule deer to traverse a landscape with varying levels of oil and gas development through time.
Methods
Using calculations of energy expenditure of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) by weight, in relation to physical terrain components, plus avoidance factors for anthropogenic disturbance, we developed a spatiotemporal model of the minimum energy required for mule deer to traverse a landscape. We compared expected energy expenditure across 12 study sites with increasing levels of oil and gas development and over time in our study area, on the northern Colorado Plateau of Utah.
Results
We found that energy expenditure can be increased by development, regardless of terrain, through increased travel distance associated with avoidance behavior. Maximum median energy expenditure to traverse a 1400 ha sample area rose from 1135 to 1935 kilocalories, a 70% increase in energy required of a mule deer. There was a significant relationship between energy expenditure and the size of oil and gas development (p < 0.001), its compactness (p < 0.05), and its ‘thinness’ (p < 0.001), but not terrain ruggedness (p = 0.25).
Conclusion
As the energy costs of movement correlate across multiple species of large mammals, our analysis of the energetic cost, for mule deer, associated with development can serve as a quantitative representative of the impacts of oil and gas development for multiple mammals—including threatened or endangered species. Our bioenergetic cost-distance model provides a means of delineating impediments to efficient movement and can be used to quantify the expected energetic costs of proposed future developments. As wildlife are exposed to increasing anthropogenic stressors which reduce fitness, it is important to make strategic siting decisions to reduce energetic costs imposed by human activities.
... In order to create a network of paths indicating the travel probability of the landscape in each case study area, we applied a From-Everywhere-to-Everywhere (FETE) approach in the statistical software R with the 'leastcostpath' package (Lewis 2021;White and Barber 2012). This only focused on terrestrial travel due to the methodological complexities associated with modelling movement through water (e.g., Blankshein 2021; Verhagen et al. 2019). ...
... In order to create a network of paths indicating the travel probability of the landscape in each case study area, we applied a From-Everywhere-to-Everywhere (FETE) approach in the statistical software R with the 'leastcostpath' package (Lewis 2021;White and Barber 2012). This only focused on terrestrial travel due to the methodological complexities associated with modelling movement through water (e.g., Blankshein 2021; Verhagen et al. 2019). ...
... Note 1 Tobler's hiking function is appropriate here because it is an exponential function that determines hiking speed while accounting for slope ( Figure 4B). We chose Tobler's function instead of other similar models because it is not only anisotropic (M arquez-P erez, Vallejo-Villalta, and Alvarez-Francoso 2017) but functions best in predictions for when persons are carrying weight in noncompetitive travel in which navigation by landmarks is required rather than strictly marked trails (Kay 2012;White and Barber 2012;Campbell et al. 2019). It has been tested in this case for time between water sources for pedestrian travel in which physiological capacity was a factor, past (Crabtree et al. 2021) andpresent (Paez et al. 2020). ...
There has been a proliferation of geographic literature exploring the fatal effects of immigration policy since the early 2000s. Studies have used geographic information systems (GIS) and predictive modeling to explore potential relationships between border protection infrastructure, environment, and migrant death. Although some studies have used GIS to determine the probable effects of heat stress, none have included the potential perspiration as a limiting factor to pedestrian travel in an arid environment during daylight hours. Heat exposure is the leading cause of mortality for migrants in the desert regions of the U.S.–Mexico border, and humans rely on water to regulate temperature. For a more systematic methodology and higher precision, we calculated the maximum distances a person could walk in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert accounting for sweat rate. The locations of recovered human remains (RHR) correlate with water usage and increased difficulty of pedestrian travel. Further, our results showed at higher precision a significant correlation of mortality and spatial rates of dehydration and demonstrate that sweat rate is a better predictor of RHR location than heat or slope alone and will be more informative for search and relief operations in the region.
... To take such logistical challenges into account when considering camps' potential connectivity, we used the GTOPO30 Digital Elevation Map (56) to calculate the anisotropic accumulated cost of movement around each camp. We will do this with Tobler's (27) hiking function that estimates speed, taking into account the slope and its direction, and is the most popular cost function in archaeological least-cost path calculations (81,82). Then, to estimate the degree of connectivity of each camp, we calculated the total number of other camps within 7 h of walk from that camp. ...
Significance
We combined ethnographic, archaeological, genetic, and paleoclimatic data to model the dynamics of Central African hunter-gatherer populations over the past 120,000 years. We show, against common assumptions, that their distribution and density are explained by changing environments rather than by a displacement following recent farming expansions, and that they have maintained large population sizes and genetic diversity, despite fluctuations in niche availability. Our results provide insights into the evolution of genetic and cultural diversity in Homo sapiens .
... Metabolic heat production (M), measured in watts (W)/m 2 of skin surface, is dependent on estimated walking velocity (V1) in m/min and slope gradient (G) as a fraction (Glass et al., 2007;Nielsen & Davies, 1976). We calculated velocity, based on slope, using Tobler's hiking function (Tobler, 1993;White & Barber, 2012) and the DEM. ...
U.S. public officials frequently argue that high temperatures are responsible for increasing mortality of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) in southern Arizona. In this article, we suggest that these kinds of assertions are not only empirically misleading, they also serve to naturalize UBC deaths in the region by helping to obscure their structural causes. Indeed, although heat exposure is a primary cause of death in the region, prior studies have also shown that migration patterns have shifted toward more remote and rugged terrain, characterized by higher elevations and greater shade cover. Using physiological modeling and a spatiotemporal forensic analysis, we assess whether the distribution of recovered human remains has shifted toward locations characterized by environments where the human body is more or less capable of regulating core temperature, and thus succumbing to heat stress. We find that the distribution of recovered UBC remains has consistently trended toward locations where the potential for heat stress is lower, rather than higher. This demonstrates that UBC mortality is not principally a function of ambient or regional temperature, but rather is a result of specific policy decisions that lead to cumulative stress and prolonged exposure due to factors like difficulty and distance of travel. To contextualize these findings, we discuss the evolution of the United States Border Patrol’s policy of Prevention Through Deterrence, and apply the concepts of structural and cultural violence to theorize its consistently deadly outcomes.
... Following up on this work, Devin White conducted research into the trail systems of Western Papaguería for his doctoral dissertation (University of Colorado), attempting to document trail networks and examine the potential for employing GIS-based analyses for the reconstruction of prehistoric behavioral patterns. The result was an impressive documentation of the region's use as a trade and travel corridor by native Papagueríans, their Hohokam clients, and neighboring Patayan (Yuman) groups and the development of complex GIS models that allow for detailed network analysis (White 2007;White and Barber 2012). ...
This study was undertaken for a “Prehistoric Trails Continuation Study”, a cultural resource investigation mandated as part of the impact mitigation effort associated with the Ocotillo Express Wind Energy Project (Memorandum of Agreement Section III (2) (c)). As such, it is a distinct study of routes of travel between the desert and mountains, integrating information collected for the previously prepared regional synthesis of the McCain Valley/Jacumba/Ocotillo prehistoric cultural landscape investigations (Figure 1) (Laylander et al. 2014).
The boundaries of the larger prehistoric cultural landscape study generally correspond to the boundaries of the Yuha-Jacumba Corridor (YJC) mountain-to-desert landscape historic context study by Noah (2012) which is also the contextual foundation of this project (see Figure 1). The eastern boundary of the Study Area has been established in consultation with the BLM at the 1500-ft. elevation contour. Although that contour is an arbitrary dividing line between the upland and lowland areas, the trails study transcends this boundary to examine routes of travel and cultural interaction between the Peninsular Ranges uplands and Colorado Desert lowlands.
As discussed in the research design for this project (Schaefer and Scharlotta 2014), the Yuha-Jacumba Corridor area may be considered a vast prehistoric cultural landscape consisting of numerous inter-related cultural and natural resources. In addition to the regional trails, an interconnected network of trails tied together the various components of the landscape forming a cognitive map for the people who used them (Noah 2012: v).
...movement across the landscape became inscribed in an extensive system of trails that linked settlements, water sources, resource acquisition areas, spiritual and ceremonial places, locations with long distance trade, social, and familial connections, and even hostile territories, one to another (Noah 2012:3).
Trail alignments are an important element of the archaeological landscape that indicates how sites and natural features are tied together. In many cases where trails are only partially recorded and are a fuller understanding of their routes will benefit the analysis, some additional field reconnaissance may be undertaken to more accurately and fully trace the trail routes. GIS also will be used to construct least- effort path models of trail routes between major resource areas and occupation hubs, based on hydrology, topography, and gradient which will be compared with actual archaeologically or ethnographically documented routes. This type of analysis will be useful for reconstructing routes that are represented by only fragmented remains and to examine patterns of association with resource collection areas.
This study relies heavily on the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software and utilities for the integration of very large archaeological databases with cartographically imaged natural environmental data.
La relación entre los yacimientos neolíticos de la península ibérica y los caminos se ha hecho, con el paso de los años, cada vez más evidente. Sobre todo, desde la implementación de las técnicas aportadas desde los SIG, que ofrecieron la posibilidad de abordar cuantitativamente este tipo de fenómenos. En este sentido, se ha identificado que la movilidad juega un papel principal en el patrón de ocupación de los grupos neolíticos peninsulares. Por eso, el presente trabajo pretende abordar, a partir de la creación de un modelo de corredores naturales, basado en el cálculo de caminos óptimos, y los análisis de visibilidad, el patrón de asentamiento de uno de estos primeros grupos, situado en el noreste peninsular (V-IV milenio cal ANE). Así, se busca poder esclarecer el papel de la movilidad en el patrón de ocupación del territorio, haciendo especial hincapié en la comparación entre estructuras megalíticas y asentamientos.
Intermediate levels of social organization—above the household but below the entire settlement, city, or polity—are notoriously difficult to pinpoint in archaeological contexts, but they nevertheless represent a crucial frontier for building new archaeological theory to understand daily social life in the past. Ethnographic research demonstrates that informants recognize units such as the “neighborhood” and consider them important. In Mesoamerica, organizational units such as the Mixtec siqui, Aztec calpulli, and Maya cuchcabal were often formally recognized in social, military, and economic systems. Here, a neighborhood case study is presented from San Pedro Teozacoalco in Oaxaca, Mexico. The site known as Iglesia Gentil, which is located atop a mountain today called Cerro Amole, was the cabecera, or administrative center, of Chiyo Cahnu, an important Postclassic Mixtec polity. Using distributions of architecture and artifacts across the site based on data collected with GPS units from 2013 to 2017, three complementary GIS-based models are evaluated for their ability to define neighborhoods at Iglesia Gentil. The best is based on least cost paths modified by Tobler's hiking function.
This paper presents an Archaeological Predictive Model (APM) to predict rock art archaeological sites in the Pajeú Watershed, a semiarid region in Pernambuco, Brazil. The model uses Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and re-sampling techniques to account for the unbalanced data set of rock art sites and test different inductive methods for predicting site location. The results show a satisfactory statistical evaluation, with high true positive rates with all ML algorithms and resampling techniques used, indicating a high potential for predicting rock art site locations. The predictive maps generated from the model output, show that certain features, such as aspect, elevation and the distance to different lithologies, are particularly important. The overall model's performance could be corroborated with a test in another semi-arid region, next to the Pajeú watershed, where areas with high favorability of finding rock art sites are predicted near to already known archaeological sites.
Nuraghi are ubiquitous in the Bronze Age Sardinian landscape, but the reasons for their distribution and wider function remain poorly understood. Here, we evaluate the argument that these megalithic fortified towers were situated for visual control and thus represent nodes of political or coercive power. Using a dataset of 102 nuraghi, we perform a normalized cumulative viewshed to quantify nuraghe visibility in southwestern Sardinia. We analyze the co-occurrence of highly visible areas with variables pertinent to economic control of the landscape using a model comparison approach. The results suggest that there is no underlying structure to the location of the nuraghi that can be related to visual appreciability of the wider environment, indicating that visual control was not an important consideration during the later 2nd millennium B.C. We consider what the driving rationale may have been behind such a predominant site type that is yet apparently unrelated to political control.
Uma das abordagens disponíveis na aplicação de Sistemas de Informação Geográfica em Arqueologia é a análise de caminhos de menor custo (Least Cost Paths ou LCP). Potenciais vias de acessibilidade no Parque Nacional da Serra das Confusões foram modeladas, integrando sítios arqueológicos conhecidos. Conjuntos de LCP gerados com base no declive do terreno, assim como parâmetros associáveis a adaptações a regiões semiáridas e opções de natureza comportamental com potencial de influenciar o deslocamento nesse território, foram testados. O uso do vale como acesso e o potencial de acessibilidade no entorno de quatro sítios arqueológicos foram analisados. Os resultados sugerem que fatores como a insolação e a (in)visibilidade podem oferecer alternativas na modelagem de padrões de movimentação na paisagem, com particular utilidade em regiões tropicais semiáridas, bem como num contexto de colonialidade.
Hydrographic networks have been the stage for major historical processes worldwide because of their economic importance and role as travel and communication pathways. This chapter focuses on this second aspect and explores the contribution of network approaches to addressing fluvial waterways in archaeology. First, it enquires into basic methodological issues concerning the modeling of hydrographic networks and how to connect them with archaeological data. It subsequently provides a critical overview of the literature that has linked formal analysis of hydrographic networks to archaeological problems and explores the potential of this approach to deal with topics that have not yet been thoroughly analyzed from this viewpoint. In doing this, two main areas of interest are identified. On the one hand, the study of hydrographic networks has been useful as a means to explore the flow of goods, information, and people along riverine routes, and hence to address topics such as exchange systems, settlement patterns, social inequalities, and landscape social construction. On the other hand, this approach may provide new insights into classical archaeological problems such as migration and diffusion through fluvial networks.
Network research has recently been adopted as one of the tools of the trade in archaeology, used to study a wide range of topics: interactions between island communities, movements through urban spaces, visibility in past landscapes, material culture similarity, exchange, and much more. This Oxford Handbook is the first authoritative reference work for archaeological network research, featuring current topical trends and covering the archaeological application of network methods and theories. This is elaborately demonstrated through substantive topics and case studies drawn from a breadth of periods and cultures in world archaeology. It highlights and further develops the unique contributions made by archaeological research to network science, especially concerning the development of spatial and material culture network methods, and approaches to studying long-term network change. This is the go-to resource for students and scholars wishing to explore how network science can be applied in archaeology through an up-to-date overview of the field.
The warrior stelae, also called southwestern stelae or western stelae, emerge as one of the most characteristic manifestations of the Bronze Age in Iberia. Since the earliest findings more than a century ago, these monoliths have received great attention from scholars, becoming the subject of an intense debate, without a consensus having been reached on their meaning and sense. A slow but steady trickle of new findings, as well as the implementation of new approaches to their study, has only enriched these discussions in recent years. One of the most successful lines has been the spatial analysis focused on the relationship of these monuments with routes, transit areas, and resources of great value. It is within this line that this article explores the potential relationship that the stelae may have had with a critical mineral resource: the tin ores distributed in western Iberia, which is the highest concentration of this mineral in Europe. To do this, a detailed spatial analysis has been conducted in order to explore if the uneven density of these monuments across western Iberia may be linked with the presence of tin ores or, alternatively, with the control of the routes that allowed the circulation of this mineral by land.
Researchers have debated the relative importance of environmental versus Indigenous effects on past fire regimes in eastern North America. Tree-ring fire-scar records (FSRs) provide local-resolution physical evidence of past fire, but few studies have spatially correlated fire frequency from FSRs with environmental and anthropogenic variables. No study has compared FSR locations to Native American settlement features in the eastern United States. We assess whether FSRs in the eastern US are located near regions of past Native American settlement. We also assess relationships between distance to Native American settlement, environmental conditions, and fire frequency in central Pennsylvania (PA), US, using an “ensemble of small models” approach for low sample sizes. Regression models of fire frequency at 21 locations in central PA often selected distance-based proxies of Indigenous land use. Models with mean annual temperature and Native American variables as predictors explained > 70% of the variation in fire frequency. Alongside temperature and wind speed, “distance to nearest trail” and “mean distance to nearest town” were significant and important predictors. In 18th-century central PA, fires were more frequent near Indigenous trails and towns, and further south due to increasing temperature and pyrophilic vegetation. However, for the entire eastern US, FSRs are located far from past settlement, limiting their effectiveness in detecting fire patterns near population centers. Improving understanding of historical fire will require developing FSRs closer to past Native American settlement.
Prehistoric rock carvings are one of Scotland’s most enigmatic and poorly understood monument types. This article discusses the pioneering approach used by Scotland’s Rock Art Project to enhance understanding of the abstract motifs through multiscalar computational analyses of a large dataset co-produced with community teams. The analysis incorporates data from across the country in order to investigate inter-regional differences and similarities in the nature and contexts of the carvings. Innovative application of complementary analytical methods identified subtle regional variations in the character of the rock art and motif types. This variability suggest an understanding of the rock art tradition that was widely shared but locally adapted, and reflects connections and knowledge exchange between specific regions.
Urban grasslands provide numerous ecosystem services, and their maintenance should be based on naturally regenerating plant populations. However, the urban environment is challenging for preserving viable populations, mostly because of their high fragmentation and small size, which can lead to genetic drift. We examined red clover ( Trifolium pratense ) in a medium-size city in Central Europe to test the cityscape effect on within- and among-population genetic diversity. We used eight inter-simple sequence repeat markers to examine the genetic structure of 16 populations, each represented by eight individuals. The isolation by resistance was analysed using a least cost patch approach, focusing on gene flow via pollinators. We found great variation among T. pratense populations, with no discernible geographic pattern in genetic diversity. We linked the diversity to the long history of the city and high stochasticity of land use changes that occurred with city development. In particular, we did not find that the Odra River (ca. 100 m wide) was a strong barrier to gene transfer. However, notable isolation was present due to resistance and distance, indicating that the populations are threatened by genetic drift. Therefore, gene movement between populations should be increased by appropriate management of urban green areas. We also found that small urban grassland (UG) patches with small populations can still hold rare alleles which significantly contribute to the overall genetic variation of T. pratense in the city.
The built landscape of Nuragic Sardinia is an exceptional case for geostatistical analysis, allowing for a discussion of long-held assumptions and ideas. The function of nuraghi (ca. 1700–1100 BCE), the most prominent settled monument of the Sardinian Bronze Age, has been addressed via a multiplicity of landscape approaches, mainly relying on intuitive assessments of their spatial properties: nuraghi were assumed as means of territorial control. The series of nuraghi crowning the mesa plateau named Giara of Gesturi (South-Central Sardinia) provides a significant case for the study of their relations with visibility and movement. Context-oriented GIS models based on viewsheds and least-cost paths have been devised as targeted tools. The results show a certain correlation between nuraghi and potential movement on the slopes, thanks to the selection of plateau morphologies such as outward crests. Anyway, nuraghi do not stand exactly at the most accessible points of the plateau. Nuraghi offered ample visual control, especially at large distances, but not specifically over the closest accessible ways. This suggests that the function of nuraghi is somehow connected to defense and visibility, but it is not explained directly by local territorial control: a role as landmarks and multifaceted monuments has likely to be envisioned.
We present a photogrammetric model and new line drawing of Sacul Stela 3 at the ancient Maya site of Sacul 1, Guatemala. Although virtually illegible in person and from photographs, the inscription on the eroded stela can largely be read or reconstructed in the 3D model. Our reading confirms a previous argument that the kingdom based at Sacul 1 was attacked in A.D. 779 by forces from the site of Ucanal. Traveling by night, warriors from Sacul retaliated with a raid at dawn next day on an unidentified site and, months later, followed up with an attack on Ucanal itself. The same narrative appears substantially on a well-known monument, Ixkun Stela 2, but there are differences between the two texts which suggest that Sacul and Ixkun had their own sculptors and record-keepers and which offer insights into the implications of verbs ( pul, “to burn” and ch'ak , “to chop”) commonly attested in Classic Maya accounts of war. We then present the results of GIS analysis which suggests that the site area of El Rosario (between Sacul 1 and Ucanal) is an appealing candidate for the unidentified site mentioned in the stela text.
Bu çalışmada, Sivas ili merkez ilçesi için en az maliyetli yol analizi (LCPA) kullanılarak bir arkeolojik tahmin modeli oluşturulmuştur. Çalışma alanı sınırları içerisinde MÖ 2. Binyıl'a tarihlenen 23 ve Demir Çağı'na tarihlenen 30 arkeolojik alan girdi noktası olarak kullanılmıştır. MÖ 2. binyıl için daha sonraki dönemlerden 18 yerleşim yeri ve Demir Çağı için demir çağı sonrası dönemlerden 12 yerleşim ise kontrol noktası olarak seçilmiştir. Çalışma alanının topoğrafyası ve giriş noktası olarak seçilen farklı arkeolojik alanlar (höyük, yamaç yerleşimi, tepe yerleşimi, tümülüs) kullanılarak bu alanlar arasında En Az Maliyetli Yol (LCP) ağı oluşturulmuştur. Kontrol noktaları ile yol ağı arasındaki ilişki her iki dönem için ayrı ayrı incelenmiş ve kontrol noktalarının %90'ından fazlasının 1 km içinde olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Bu kontrol noktalarının %80'den fazlası ilk 500 m’deki, %20'den fazlası ise 50 m’deki alanda yer almaktadır. Elde edilen sonuçlar, LCPA kullanılarak etkili bir tahmine dayalı modelin oluşturulabileceğini göstermektedir.
The Cambridge Manual to Archaeological Network Science provides the first comprehensive guide to a field of research that has firmly established itself within archaeological practice in recent years. Network science methods are commonly used to explore big archaeological datasets and are essential for the formal study of past relational phenomena: social networks, transport systems, communication, and exchange. The volume offers a step-by-step description of network science methods and explores its theoretical foundations and applications in archaeological research, which are elaborately illustrated with archaeological examples. It also covers a vast range of network science techniques that can enhance archaeological research, including network data collection and management, exploratory network analysis, sampling issues and sensitivity analysis, spatial networks, and network visualisation. An essential reference handbook for both beginning and experienced archaeological network researchers, the volume includes boxes with definitions, boxed examples, exercises, and online supplementary learning and teaching materials.
We report on the application of a novel approach to exploring the degree of landscape knowledge, wayfinding abilities, and the nature of decision-making processes reflected in the utilization of stone resources in the French Middle Paleolithic. Specifically, we use data from the site of the Bau de l’Aubesier to explore the reasons why a majority of the 350 raw material sources cataloged in the surrounding region appear not to have been utilized, including several located near the site and yielding high-quality lithic materials. To this end, we focus on the spatial relationships between sources as an explanatory variable, operationalized in terms of minimum travel times. Using geographic information system software and a generalized linear model of resource selection derived from the Bau assemblages, we compute source utilization probabilities from the perspective of hominins located off-site. We do so under three optimization scenarios, factoring in the intrinsic characteristics (e.g., quality) and time required to reach each source on the way to the Bau. More generally, we find that in slightly more than 50% of cases, seemingly viable sources may have been ignored simply because the minimum cost path leading back to the Bau passes through or requires only minimal deviations to reach, higher quality options. More generally, we found that throughout the entire region, a cost/benefit analysis of competing sources favors those from source areas known to have been utilized. Virtually all the available information on lithic procurement at the Bau is consistent with a model of landscape utilization premised on detailed knowledge of a very large area, an ability to accurately estimate travel times between locations, and a pragmatic strategy of stone resource exploitation based on minimizing costs (travel and search times) and maximizing utility.
This dissertation explores how people transform “new” and unfamiliar environments through colonization. While adaptationist perspectives typically stress how the environment shapes human behavior and communities, I integrate historical ecology and settlement ecology to examine how people mold, maintain, and manage landscapes. Rather than passive backdrops, landscapes are dynamic, produced as humans actively modify the environment. Boundaries, whether stable or fluid, divide and structure landscapes. As a type of boundary, frontiers can be understood as centers of social interaction and exchange, but more often are viewed as peripheries, remote but ripe for settlement, or wild zones where pioneers struggled to survive. Given factors like severe winters, poor soils, and warfare, the latter portrayal dominates narratives of America’s Eastern frontier during the 18th and 19th centuries. To interrogate notions of a largely static, intractable frontier environment, I assess how Euroamericans transformed the Downeast Maine region through settlement and enclosure. To determine how they colonized, cleared, bounded, and cultivated the landscape, I analyze archival, archaeological, and geospatial data from nine towns. First, I trace changes in the landscape and agricultural production between 1792 and 1811 using historical tax valuations. Statistical and geospatial analyses of this data suggest some town landscapes were more thoroughly improved and refined through agriculture than others. Initial parallels between frontier agricultural production and that of southern New England challenge notions of the intractable frontier environment. Second, I juxtapose 18th- and 19th-century maps with Google Earth and Light Detection and Ranging imagery to explore how the frontier landscape was settled, divided, and enclosed. By identifying historical landscape features that endure in the modern landscape, I chart continuity and change in the structure of these towns through the present. Finally, I examine the Foster Farmstead in Deer Isle, Maine as a case study to investigate how settlement and agrarian activities became physically embedded in the landscape at a small scale. My archaeological survey and excavation reveal settlement and landscape features like foundations, stone walls, and stone piles, which attest to how descendants of the Fosters continued to inhabit, transform, and enclose the land through time.
This chapter argues that the Zapotec migration from the highland Valley of Oaxaca to the coastal Isthmus of Tehuantepec was also a colonial campaign. Spanish colonialism from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries ce forever changed the historical trajectories of the Caribbean, the Americas, Pacific Islands, and the Philippines. In 1520 ce, immediately following the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan, the Spanish initiated campaigns into Oaxaca, lured by promises of land and riches. Most of the archaeological excavations have targeted Postclassic and Early Colonial Nejapa sites that are relevant to understanding conquests and colonialisms. Long standing economic contacts and political relations among the diverse peoples living across Oaxaca underwrote the rise of Postclassic commerce and the successes of Oaxaca's cacicazgos and the Mexica regime in Central Mexico.
Perched high above Roosevelt Lake in Tonto Basin, central Arizona, the Upper and Lower Tonto Cliff Dwellings have been commonly excluded from archaeological narratives for the basin. Although one of the few sizeable settlements inhabited in Tonto Basin during the Gila phase (A.D. 1350–1450), the cliff dwellings fell outside the boundaries of several large cultural resource management projects, and are a settlement type atypical for the basin. A disconnect between studies of the Tonto Cliff Dwellings and the rest of the basin therefore exists. Least cost paths (LCPs) are therefore calculated from the Tonto Cliff Dwellings to settlements around Arizona to identify and contextualize possible travel routes between Tonto Basin and beyond. It is argued that reconstructing and refining travel in the ancient Southwest requires the creation of multiple LCPs among multiple start and end points, verification through artifact and feature documentation, and insights from traditional knowledge.
A growing number of archaeologists are applying Geographic Information Science (GIS) technologies to their research problems and questions. Advances in GIS and its use across disciplines allows for collaboration and enables archaeologists to ask ever more sophisticated questions and develop increasingly elaborate models on numerous aspects of past human behavior. Least cost analysis (LCA) is one such avenue of inquiry. While least cost studies are not new to the social sciences in general, LCA is relatively new to archaeology; until now, there has been no systematic exploration of its use within the field. his edited volume presents a series of case studies illustrating the intersection of archaeology and LCA modeling at the practical, methodological, and theoretical levels. Designed to be a guidebook for archaeologists interested in using LCA in their own research, it presents a wide cross-section of practical examples for both novices and experts. The contributors to the volume showcase the richness and diversity of LCA's application to archaeological questions, demonstrate that even simple applications can be used to explore sophisticated research questions, and highlight the challenges that come with injecting geospatial technologies into the archaeological research process.
We present a visualization and computation tool for modeling the caloric cost of pedestrian travel across three dimensional terrains. This tool is being used in ongoing archaeological research that analyzes how costs of locomotion affect the spatial distribution of trails and artifacts across archaeological landscapes. Throughout human history, traveling by foot has been the most common form of transportation, and therefore analyses of pedestrian travel costs are important for understanding prehistoric patterns of resource acquisition, migration, trade, and political interaction. Traditionally, archaeologists have measured geographic proximity based on "as the crow flies" distance. We propose new methods for terrain visualization and analysis based on measuring paths of least caloric expense, calculated using well established metabolic equations. Our approach provides a human centered metric of geographic closeness, and overcomes significant limitations of available Geographic Information System (GIS) software. We demonstrate such path computations and visualizations applied to archaeological research questions. Our system includes tools to visualize: energetic cost surfaces, comparisons of the elevation profiles of shortest paths versus least cost paths, and the display of paths of least caloric effort on Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). These analysis tools can be applied to calculate and visualize 1) likely locations of prehistoric trails and 2) expected ratios of raw material types to be recovered at archaeological sites.
The nature of sociopolitical change during the Classic to Postclassic transition in Mesoamerica has been a source of great research interest and debate. Throughout most of Mesoamerica this period, lasting from about 600 to 1000 CE, was characterized by the fragmentation or collapse of the complex polities that dominated the Classic period (250-800 CE) political landscape. Archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic research suggests that this period was characterized by dramatic changes in political institutions and ruling ideologies as well as depopulation in some regions (Cowgill 1979; Culbert 1973; Demarest et al. 2004; Diehl and Berlo 1989; Sabloff and Andrews 1986; Webster et al. 2000). Factors that have been implicated in the collapse include warfare, internal revolt, anthropogenic landscape degradation, and climate change. Despite the dramatic sociopolitical changes documented for this period, many questions remain as to their timing, nature, and causes. Perhaps nowhere in Mesoamerica has the Classic period collapse been as hotly debated as in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where scholars disagree on the nature and timing of demographic and sociopolitical changes (Marcus and Flannery 1990; Winter 1989, 1994). In highland Oaxaca, problems with clearly defining a suite of diagnostic ceramic styles for the Early Postclassic, coupled with relatively few radiocarbon dates, have made it difficult for archaeologists to identify sites from this period (Kowalewski et al. 1989:251-254; Lind 1991-1992; Winter 1994), although research by Martínez, Markens, and Winter is beginning to resolve this problem (Chapter 2). Debates over basic questions of chronology have led to widely divergent arguments about the Classic to Postclassic transition, ranging from massive depopulation to political fragmentation with relatively little change in overall population (Chapters 1 and 12). In this chapter, I address the Classic to Postclassic transition in Oaxaca by examining the Classic period collapse in the lower Río Verde Valley on Oaxaca's western Pacific Coast (Figure 7.1).1 Recent research in the lower Verde has clarified the nature of demographic and sociopolitical change at this time ( Joyce et al. 2001; Joyce et al. 2004; Joyce and King 2001; King 2003). I consider the Classic to Postclassic transition from the perspective of the history of centralized political authority in the lower Río Verde Valley. The history of sociopolitical change in the region has been the focus of interdisciplinary research over the past twenty years (Barber 2005; Grove 1988; Joyce 1991a, 1991b, 1999, 2005; Joyce et al. 1998; Joyce et al. 2001; King 2003; Urcid and Joyce 2001; Workinger 2002). This research has included horizontal and/or block excavations at the sites of Río Viejo, Cerro de la Cruz, San Francisco de Arriba, Yugüe, Cerro de la Virgen, and Tututepec as well as test excavations at thirteen other sites. The entire region has been the focus of a non-systematic surface reconnaissance, and full-coverage surveys have systematically studied an area of 152 square kilometers ( Joyce 1999; Joyce et al. 2001; Joyce et al. 2004; Workinger 2002). The regional data demonstrate an initial period of political centralization toward the end of the Formative period, followed by a political collapse at ca. 250 CE. A second period of centralization occurred during the Late Classic period (500-800 CE) followed by collapse in the Early Postclassic (800-1100 CE). Although not a focus of this chapter, the prehispanic sequence ends with a third period of centralization during the Late Postclassic (1100-1522 CE), which was terminated abruptly by the Spanish Conquest. My historical analysis is based on a poststructural theoretical framework (e.g., Giddens 1979; Janusek 2004; Joyce et al. 2001; Pauketat 2001) and argues that regional political authority in the lower Río Verde Valley was relatively unstable and negotiated and was continuously produced by dynamic, ongoing social relations. Rather than representing the end of a long period of political relations that were overdetermined by a coherent and integrated political structure dominated by the elite (e.g., Fox et al. 1996; Marcus and Flannery 1996:chapter 15; Martin and Grube 2000; Schele and Mathews 1998), the Classic period collapse appears more like a "moment" prefigured, at least in part, by social contradictions and tensions that were inherent in the production of centralized political systems. I argue that archaeologists need to move away from the structuralist societal typologies that have dominated research on political relations in the past. Before discussing the archaeology of the lower Río Verde Valley, I briefly consider the implications of poststructural theory for models of Mesoamerican political organization. Approaches to the political history of Mesoamerican polities have most often relied on structuralist conceptions of political organization that focus on mechanisms of social organization and integration (Iannone 2002). In these models, ancient Mesoamerican polities are viewed as integrated and cohesive social formations. Recent debate, particularly in the Maya Lowlands, has focused on whether polities were organized in a centralized or decentralized fashion (e.g., Fox et al. 1996; Iannone 2002). Centralized or unitary states are organized and integrated through a centralized bureaucratic state system characterized by a great degree of administrative control over economic, military, and religious matters. Centralized polities are generally seen as larger in territory and population than decentralized ones and are characterized by an endogamous class system. In the decentralized model social integration is achieved largely through kinship and religious practices with rulers as lineage heads. Polities consist of a number of functionally redundant kinship-based units that unite or split apart depending on social conditions, particularly the presence of external threats. In the decentralized model the core political units therefore are kinship groups, usually viewed as lineages, which unite to form larger states that are led by kings who act as ritualists, politicians, and marriage brokers to forge tenuous and often temporary alliances of the social segments. Decentralized states are not characterized by the bureaucracies and large standing armies, often mentioned as features of centralized polities. Debates over Mesoamerican social organization are increasingly moving toward a middle ground between these two positions that recognizes a continuum in social organization from strongly centralized to decentralized (Iannone 2002; Marcus 1993, 1998). Marcus (1993, 1998) has attempted to integrate both the centralized and decentralized positions through her dynamic model, which argues that complex polities cycle historically between larger-scale and smaller-scale polities. The unification and dissolution of polities are seen as "different stages in the dynamic cycles of the same state" and thus are characteristic of the cultural evolution of complex societies (Marcus 1998:92). The main causes of state cycling are seen as interelite competition and the recognition that "large-scale, asymmetrical, and inegalitarian structures were more fragile and unstable than commonly assumed" (Marcus 1998:94). Despite the increasing recognition of the dynamism of prehispanic polities, approaches to social organization and political history continue to focus on overarching social and political structures. The decentralized and dynamic models recognize some inherent societal tensions, at least in the larger political formations of the pre-Columbian world, particularly between the institutions of kinship and kingship (see Fox et al. 1996; Iannone 2002). These models, however, continue to focus on the long-term stability, coherence, and integration of large-scale political units, whether the lineage in the decentralized model or the state in the centralized model. The dynamic model further argues that political cycling is part of the inherent structure of complex political systems. Instead of focusing on the nature of sociopolitical structures, in this chapter I will begin with Marcus's (1998) recognition of the fragility and instability of centralized political systems by exploring social contradictions and tensions that were inherent in the ongoing social relations that constituted the centralized political systems of the lower Río Verde Valley.
As part of a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) predictive model of the proposed Northern Arc highway corridor north of Atlanta, plausible associations were hypothesized between key environmental factors and archaeological localities. One byproduct of the investigation was the creation of a GIS surface representing "travel friction" and a model of potential travel arteries. By roughly approximating travel costs, the model identifies the lowest cost travel vectors in the region. These are illustrated and compared with known archaeological sites from different temporal periods.
Slope exerts a powerful influence on the route selection processes of humans. Attempts to model human movement in hilly and mountainous terrain that have largely focused on least-time route transformations can be improved by incorporating research that suggests humans systematically overestimate slopes. Such research suggests that cost functions derived from slope should be more expensive than time derivations alone would indicate. This paper presents a method that empirically estimates cost functions for slopes. The method is then used to predict routes and paths that are more likely to be selected by humans based on their perceptions of slope. We also evaluate that method and find it successfully predicts road, track and trail locations over a variety of conditions and distances.
"La finalidad de este capítulo es explorar el contexto arqueológico del área
nuclear de la que se ocupa este volumen, recurriendo a dos formas de
contextualización simultáneas. Por un lado, una contextualización territorial, basada
en el análisis de algunas de las formas del registro arqueológico presentes en el
entorno más inmediato del área nuclear de estudio (Zona 1), la que se ha definido
anteriormente como Zona 2 de trabajo. Por otro lado, una contextualización que
podemos describir como temática: el objeto principal de nuestro análisis no será el
arte rupestre, sino otras formas del registro que enseguida presentaremos."
Paleoecological archives from three paleomeander sites and one archeological feature located in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico, are used to develop a spatial understanding of the patterns of prehistoric agricultural land use over the last ~3000 years. Multiproxy paleoecological data at each site (i.e. magnetic susceptibility, micro- and macroscopic charcoal, pollen and stable carbon isotopes) provide a history of land use. By examining the spatial differences in agricultural indicators at all the sites through time, augmented with our understanding of changes in demography and settlement patterns determined through the archeological record, we are able to reconstruct the complex human/land interactions in the western portion of the valley.
Throughout Mesoamerica, archaeologists have found that compositional sourcing analysis of obsidian provides a valuable indicator of interregional interaction and political economy. We recently sourced obsidian from two different periods, the Early Formative (1200/1150–850 B.C.) and Middle/Late Formative (500–300 B.C.), at Etlatongo in the Nochixtlán Valley of the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico, to explore diachronic changes in its procurement. Villagers consumed obsidian in a variety of ways. For the Early Formative, villagers accessed obsidian from a surprising range of sources, while focusing on a central Mexican one. Samples from two earlier sites, Yucuita, in the Mixteca Alta, and Rancho Dolores Ortíz, in an adjacent region, were also analyzed in order to contextualize changes at Etlatongo. The Middle/Late Formative obsidian sample from Etlatongo shows less reliance on one source but a consistent central Mexican focus, and is compared with recent samples from the major Zapotec urban center in the Valley of Oaxaca, Monte Albán, and the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, as well as with previous samples from those regions and the Lower Río Verde Valley. These comparisons reveal changes and continuity in the obsidian sources utilized as well as the nature of distribution, interaction, and competition among and within regions.
We present the results of the Cerro Jazmín Archaeological Project, a mapping and intensive survey project of a hilltop urban center in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico. Our archaeological and geomorphological investigations reveal a long history of intermittent occupation with the time of maximum occupation, the Early Postclassic, corresponding with soil formation and landscape stability. Our population estimates are compared with agricultural production projections to assess the city's capability to feed its population and we argue that it functioned as an agricultural center. In a broader discussion of landscape and urbanism, Cerro Jazmín's managed labor was needed to build, manage, and maintain its terrace systems. Our findings show that large urban populations do not necessarily cause environmental degradation.
Findings from recent survey and excavation projects in Ejutla, Oaxaca, enable a broader examination of marine shell use and exchange in ancient Mesoamerica. A variety of shell ornaments were manufactured from Pacific Coast species at the Ejutla site during the Terminal Formative/Early Classic periods. Comparisons of the Ejutla mollusc assemblage with shell ornaments found at other highland Oaxaca sites indicate shifts in the nature of shell-ornament manufacture and exchange during the Formative and Early Classic periods. These changes, in conjunction with other findings, signal shifting relationships late in the Formative period among Monte Albán, the Ejutla Valley, and the Pacific Coast. The recognized shifts in highland-lowland Oaxaca relations generally coincide with an expanded importance of Pacific Coast shell at Teotihuacan and in the Lowland Maya region.
The aim of this paper is to extend the range of current analytical procedures that archaeologists use to understand movement. In particular, how a landscape becomes ordered by simply defining a destination. More specifically, this study proposes the derivation of a focal mobility network, i.e. the network of most likely paths towards a given destination, and explores several of its applications within a landscape archaeology framework. The suggested extensions are based on existing standard procedures within most GIS. A series of synthetic control surfaces and an archaeological study focused around Iron Age hillforts in Galicia (NW Spain) are used as case studies to illustrate different analytical possibilities.
Investigations of the functional utility and social elaboration of natural transportation corridors contribute to generating more comprehensive understandings of complex macroregional phenomena such as political evolution. In this article, highland central Mexican transportation corridors are analyzed through GIS applications and a reconsideration of settlement data from an important corridor in northern Tlaxcala. The location of the study region, within the corridor connected to the northeastern Basin of Mexico, makes it particularly relevant for examining interregional exchanges and the transformation of a more rural landscape adjacent to core areas of urbanization and state political expansion. Conclusions drawn from the study are largely complementary to the interpretations made by the surveyors [Merino Carrión, B.L., 1989. La Cultura Tlaxco. Serie Arqueológica, Colección Científica 174, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City], but provide an updated assessment of prehispanic political evolution ca. 900 BC–AD 1519. Specifically, the study tracks the evolution of early ceremonial centers, Teotihuacan’s territorial expansion through the region, political balkanization following the collapse of Teotihuacan, and the establishment of small, independent polities encountered by the Spanish. New contributions include quantitative measures relevant to assessing the systemic integration of the region and the social value of the corridor during different chronological phases, elucidating the differing expansionary trajectories of Teotihuacan and the Aztec Empire.
Previous interdisciplinary paleoenvironmental and archaeological research along the Río Verde Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, showed that Holocene erosion in the highland valleys of the upper drainage basin triggered geomorphic changes in the river's coastal floodplain. This article uses stratigraphic data from sediment cores extracted from Laguna Pastoría, an estuary in the lower Río Verde Valley, to examine changes in coastal geomorphology potentially triggered by highland erosion. Coastal lagoon sediments contain a stratigraphically and chronologically distinct record of major hurricane strikes during late Holocene times. Three distinct storm facies are identified from sediment cores obtained from Laguna Pastoría, which indicate that profound coastal environmental changes occurred within the region and are correlated with increased sediment supplied from highland erosion. The Chione/Laevicardium facies was deposited in an open bay while the Mytella/barnacle facies and sand facies were deposited in an enclosed lagoon following bay barrier formation. We argue that highland erosion triggered major geomorphic changes in the lowlands including bay barrier formation by ∼2500 cal yr B.P. These environmental changes may have had significant effects on human populations in the region. The lagoon stratigraphy further indicates an increase in mid–late Holocene hurricane activity, possibly caused by increased El Niño frequencies.
In planning potential routes for roads and canals, topography often acts as a significant constraint. From the almost infinite traj ectories that are possible between two points, the selected path should be a good approximation of the one with the least cost, and it should avoid exaggerated slopes. In the case of a canal, uphill reaches of the path should be restricted to a minimum. This paper presents a least -cost-path algorithm developed to find the best path given the topography, the starting and ending points of the linear feature (canal or road) and a function relating slope, distance and cost. The algorithm is based on dynamic programming techniques adapted to solve problems on a grid, or raster structure, that is usually used by Geographical Information Systems. We implemented the algorithm in a computer program and applied it to solve hypothetical problems. Although not real cost functions where used, the results were coherent and showed the capabilities of the algorithm.
Few archaeologists would argue against the need for a well-defined chronology; without it, observations and inferences regarding the material record cannot be anchored in time. Yet, as Americanist archaeology broke free from an overwhelming concern with culture history in the 1960s to address what were seen as more stimulating issues, interest in chronology in Oaxaca generally lapsed. This is made most apparent by reviewing the existing regional ceramic chronologies for the State of Oaxaca (Figure 2.1). Although many of the state's regional chronologies were formulated decades ago, phases lasting 500 years or even longer are immediately apparent in a number of regions. The Valley of Oaxaca is a case in point, where one long-standing chronological concern has been left in a state of limbo: The definition of ceramic phases spanning the Classic-Postclassic period transition (see Smith and Berdan 2003:4; Winter 1989b). Here I report on a facet of recent research designed to illuminate the Classic- Postclassic period transition in the Valley of Oaxaca's ceramic chronology. Applying techniques of occurrence and phyletic seriation to a sample of seventy-three Valley of Oaxaca tomb and grave lots consisting of pottery vessels, I establish a chronological sequence for the materials permitting the definition of three ceramic phases for the Postclassic period: The Early Liobaa phase (800-1000 CE), the Late Liobaa phase (1000-1200 CE), and the Chila phase (1200-1521 CE). I also divide the Late Classic period into two phases: The Peche (500-600 CE) and Xoo (600-800 CE) phases, following Martínez López and her colleagues (2000). The major ceramic forms and variable states for each phase are described and illustrated in an effort to make this information available (Chapter 3; Oudijk 2000, 2002). The seriation is supported in its major contours by existing Valley of Oaxaca radiocarbon dates as well as by a new series of dates from the sites of Macuilxóchitl, Lambityeco, and Xaagá acquired during recent salvage excavations carried out in 2002 and 2003 in connection with the widening of the Pan-American Highway (Mexico 190).
The colonial highway between Mexico City and Veracruz is often considered to coincide with Aztec commercial routes. Such a conclusion, which relies on direct comparisons of the routes before and after the Spanish Conquest, ignores the context in which decisions to locate the highway may have been made. Reconstruction of the movements of Cortes and the Army of Conquest sheds light on the extent of the Spaniards' geographical knowledge of the region in the years before the establishment of the colonial highway. Set against a reconstruction of Aztec commerce, such an analysis suggests that the Spaniards had full knowledge of Aztec route locations in this area yet consciously chose to reject the indigenous experience. Their choice was an early example of the colonial route structure that subsequently dominated much of Latin America. Survival of this externally oriented transport form over its internally oriented pre-Hispanic predecessors has had a considerable influence on contemporary patterns of economic development.
This project used many sources of remotely sensed data, digital image analysis methods, advanced geospatial predictive modeling, and traditional archaeological survey to locate, document, contextualize, and interpret over one hundred prehistoric trails and associated networks in the Western Papagueria region of the North American Southwest in order to gain insight into how several landscapes within the region were used in the past. While a traditional culture history of the region suggests that the landscapes would have collectively been used primarily as a corridor for the transportation of exotic materials such as marine shell and salt from the Gulf of California to the Phoenix Basin and other parts of the Southwest, research has shown that the landscapes cannot be treated as a functional monolith. They exhibit a high degree of sub-regional variation motivated by strong local intra-community ties and sacred/ritual concerns in addition to energy-efficient, long distance travel motivated by exchange. This finding further strengthens current thinking related to the settlement of and regional interactions within the Western Papagueria during prehistory, one that continues to highlight its importance as a trade and transportation corridor, but also supports the idea of an indigenous semi-sedentary population that was focused inwards on fulfilling its own unique set of social, economic, and ideological needs.
Major advances have occurred in the analytical use of GIS in archaeology, particularly in uses of this tool for furthering understandings of past social landscapes. A major focus of these efforts has been visibility studies and archaeologists have paid less attention to how GIS can facilitate the study of another important socio-spatial component, movement. This paper examines the GIS application of multi-criteria cost surface analysis as a robust technique for modeling past movement and applies this approach to the Late Prehistoric period (ca. AD 1200–1600) in Michigan as a case study. This analysis extends understandings of the role of localized connections and tribal territoriality with the spread of maize agriculture in this period and adds further support to the proposal that earthwork enclosures served as uniquely accessible ritual centers for social, economic and ideological interaction between separate tribal communities within the Late Prehistoric regional organization. By showing this technique can build on and validate models of past social developments, grant real insights into social connections and affiliations, and stimulate new directions for future research, this specific case illustrates the general heuristic value of multi-criteria cost surface analysis for exploring regional landscapes in archaeology.
The Monte Albán state emerged in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, between 300 and 100 BC. Archaeological evidence indicates that this case of state formation was linked to the territorial expansion of the Monte Albán polity. We argue that rulers at Monte Albán adopted an expansionist strategy in order to acquire resources they could use to fund campaigns against rival polities and to bolster their position in a competitive sociopolitical environment. Logistical challenges associated with expansion favored experimentation with new (state) forms of administrative control, while importation of exotic goods contributed to the development of social stratification. Multiple lines of evidence—including excavation data from Tilcajete and Yaasuchi, survey data from the Sola Valley, and a GIS model of potential transportation routes—indicate that the Pacific coast of Oaxaca likely was a target of Monte Albán’s expansion. Our model explains the variable nature of that expansion and its impact on the developmental histories of neighboring regions, as well as the synergistic increase in complexity among interacting societies in Late Formative Oaxaca. Cross-cultural comparison demonstrates that key factors in the formation of the Monte Albán state (e.g., status rivalry, inter-polity conflict, territoriality, militarism, trade) are evident elsewhere in the world.
A description of the work of Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus and their colleagues in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley where the Zapotecs created one of the world's original civilizations. At its peak 1500 years ago, the Zapotec capital of Monte Alban - with its magnificent temples, tombs, ballcourts and hieroglyphic inscriptions - dominated a society of over 100,000 people with farflung territorial outposts. Yet a millennium earlier Monte Alban had been uninhabited and the valley's population less than one tenth its later size. The authors of the book go back to the beginnings of the settlement in Oaxaca 10,000 years ago to provide the answers to what caused this sudden cultural flowering.
This paper is based on field survey work carried out in the Sangro Valley, Abruzzo, Italy, between 1994 and 1998. While the preliminary results of the survey are published elsewhere (Lloyd et al. 1997), this paper introduces the results of a computer-based GIS methodology for reconstructing routes of communication between ancient sites in a landscape, designed to complement traditional survey methodologies and explore the so-called ‘off-site’ archaeology that exists between areas of intense antique occupation within the landscape. In doing so the paper not only demonstrates the theoretical value of such an approach, but shows how its practical application has helped the project understand in greater detail the ancient landscape of the Sangro river valley.
The incorporation of geospatial technologies in archaeology has resulted in productive advances in the analysis of past behavioral processes. Archaeologists have relied on the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) application of cost surface analysis and the computation of least cost paths (LCP) to study movement, one key social process. Recent research has identified limitations with LCP for modeling nonhuman species movement, notably the inability of LCP to accommodate multiple pathways. Archaeology must consider the implications of these critiques for models of past human movement. In this paper, I apply a different approach, circuit theory modeling, enacted through the program Circuitscape, to an archaeological case study previously analyzed with LCP modeling, travel to a regionally significant ceremonial earthwork center during Late Prehistory (ca. AD 1200–1600) in the Northern Great Lakes. Through this comparative analysis, I evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these methods for modeling past movement. The results suggest LCP modeling and circuit modeling offer archaeology complementary geospatial methods for conceptualizing past mobility. Combining circuit theory and LCP allows archaeologists to produce richer models of past movement by appreciating scenarios where multiple pathways are important as well as scenarios where optimum single travel routes have priority.Highlights► Introduces and evaluates a circuit theory approach to modeling past human movement. ► Offers a case study of travel during Late Prehistory in the Northern Great Lakes. ► Demonstrates benefits of considering multiple pathways with circuit-based modeling. ► Extends geospatial toolkit for modeling past movement beyond least cost path (LCP).
Recent excavations at Laguna Zope, on the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, provide interesting insights into the nature of a regional center in the hinterlands of Monte Albán. The excavation focused on an elite-status area of the site dating to the Terminal Formative period, a time when the Monte Albán polity in the highland Valley of Oaxaca was thought to have embarked on an imperialist campaign to turn former exchange partners into tribute-paying subjects. In contrast to the evidence from some other regions of Oaxaca, there was little to suggest that Laguna Zope was ever subjugated. On the contrary, exchange between Pacific coastal Laguna Zope and Monte Albán seems to have flourished during the Terminal Formative despite the political unrest that apparently interfered with commerce elsewhere in Oaxaca. In maintaining its political independence and resilience as a center for long-distance exchange during this troubled period, Laguna Zope may have capitalized on its relative distance from the Valley of Oaxaca and on a geographic location that afforded it strategic access to other markets.
Figure 1. Terrain with path comparisons. The shortest path is shown in red while the energetically least cost path is shown in blue. This visualization shows how least cost paths often follow natural features of the landscape, avoiding unnecessary elevation gains. The elevation profiles of these two paths further illustrate this fact. See figure 2. The overall caloric saving for the least cost path is 21%. ABSTRACT We present a visualization and computation tool for modeling the caloric cost of pedestrian travel across three dimensional terrains. This tool is being used in ongoing archaeological research that analyzes how costs of locomotion affect the spatial distribution of trails and artifacts across archaeological landscapes. Throughout human history, traveling by foot has been the most common form of transportation, and therefore analyses of pedestrian travel costs are important for understanding prehistoric patterns of resource acquisition, migration, trade, and political interaction. Traditionally, archaeologists have measured geographic proximity based on "as the crow flies" distance. We propose new methods for terrain visualization and analysis based on measuring paths of least caloric expense, calculated using well established metabolic equations. Our approach provides a human centered metric of geographic closeness, and overcomes significant limitations of all available Geographic Information System (GIS) software. We demonstrate such path computations and visualizations applied to archaeological research questions. Our system includes tools to visualize: energetic cost surfaces, comparisons of the elevation profiles of shortest paths versus least cost paths, and the display of paths of least caloric effort on Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). These analysis tools can be applied to calculate and visualize 1) likely locations of prehistoric trails and 2) expected ratios of raw material types to be recovered at archaeological sites.
a b s t r a c t Assessing the impact of prehistoric sites on their local environment is difficult to accomplish with standard archaeological methods. Simulation modeling offers a solution to this issue, but it is first necessary to delimit a site catchment, or "zone of impact", around archaeological sites in which to carry out humaneenvironment interaction modeling. To that end, I have developed a new method for GIS-based catchment reconstruction and distilled it into a custom module (r.catchment) for GRASS GIS, which calculates catchments of a given area based on anisotropic travel costs from a point of origin. One method of applying this new module in exploratory catchment modeling is discussed using the pastoral economy of the Late Neolithic period in Wadi Ziqlâb, Northern Jordan as a test case. A model of Late Neolithic herding economy and ecology is constructed, which combines data from archaeology, phyto-geography, range science, agronomy, and ethnohistory. Four sizes of pastoral catchments are then derived using r.catchment, and the herd ecology model is used to estimate the stocking-rate (carrying capacity) of mixed goat and sheep herds for each catchment. The human populations these herd numbers could support (between 3 and 630 people in the Wadi) are then compared with human pop-ulation estimates derived from household architectural analyses (between 18 and 54 people in the Wadi) to determine the most probable catchment configurations. The results indicate that the most probable zone of impact around the known Late Neolithic sites in Wadi Ziqlâb was somewhere between 9 and 20 square kilometers, delineated by 3 and 4.5 km pasture radii respectively.
We consider a graph with n vertices, all pairs of which are connected by an edge; each edge is of given positive length. The following two basic problems are solved. Problem 1: construct the tree of minimal total length between the n vertices. (A tree is a graph with one and only one path between any two vertices.) Problem 2: find the path of minimal total length between two given vertices.
The paper examines the limits of efficient foot transport of utilitarian goods and food in the pre-Hispanic American Southwest, basing this assessment on field studies of long-distance portage, both domestic and commercial, in the roadless hills of modern-day eastern Nepal. The paper predicts the effect of load weight on transport costs and energy profits and also examines the relationship between distance and round-trip travel time for portaging 50-kg loads over one-way distances ranging from 50 to 250 km. The Nepali evidence refutes Lightfoot's 50-km operational limit for an “effective redistribution network, based on foot transportation.” The extensive network of domestic and commercial portage operating today in eastern Nepal demonstrates clearly that foot transport of food staples and durable goods would have been feasible in the pre-Hispanic American Southwest on a regular basis over distances of at least 100 to 150 km and on an occasional basis over much longer distances.
Throughout history, the primary means of transportation for humans has been on foot. We present a software tool which can
help visualize and predict where historical trails might lie through the use of a human-centered cost metric, with an emphasis
on the ability to generate paths which traverse several thousand kilometers. To accomplish this, various graph simplification
and path approximation algorithms are explored. We show that it is possible to restrict the search space for a path finding
algorithm while not sacrificing accuracy. Combined with a multi-threaded variant of Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm, we
present a tool capable of computing a path of least caloric cost across the contiguous US, a dataset containing over 19 billion
datapoints, in under three hours on a 2.5 Ghz dual core processor. The potential archaeological and historical applications
are demonstrated on several examples.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Buffalo, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-167). Photocopy of typescript.