10. EXERCISING THE MODEL: ASSESSING CHANGES IN SETTLEMENT LOCATION AND EFFICIENCY

2019 ◽  
pp. 153-164
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Location

Towards a Geography of Shetland Brochs

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel Fojut
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Partial Reconstruction ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Model Formation

Summary A variety of simple techniques based upon the distribution, location and siting of Shetland's brochs, when used in conjunction with data from excavated sites, allows a partial reconstruction of the forces behind the observed patterns of broch-period settlement. The various spatial influences are examined at a number of scales, and the results used to construct a model of settlement location in relation to the physical environment. The process of model-formation demonstrates the potential of fieldwork as a source of illumination where excavation evidence is scanty.

Changing Places: Rock Art and Holocene Landscapes in the Wadi al-Ajal, South-West Libya

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tertia Barnett ◽  
Maria Guagnin
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Gis Model ◽  
South West ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Central Sahara ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This article examines the relationship between rock art and landscape use by pastoral groups and early settled communities in the central Sahara from around 6000 BC to 1000 AD. During this period the region experienced significant climatic and environmental fluctuations. Using new results from a systematic survey in the Wadi al-Ajal, south-west Libya, our research combines data from over 2000 engraved rock art panels with local archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence within a GIS model. Spatial analysis of these data indicates a correspondence between the frequency of rock art sites and human settlement over time. However, while changes in settlement location were guided primarily by the constraints on accessibility imposed by surface water, the distribution of rock art relates to the availability of pasture and patterns of movement through the landscape. Although the reasons for these movements undoubtedly altered over time, natural routes that connected the Wadi al-Ajal and areas to the south continued to be a focus for carvings over several thousand years.

Using Viewshed Analysis to Explore Settlement Choice: A Case Study of the Onondaga Iroquois

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric E. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Past Behavior ◽  
Viewshed Analysis ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Political Landscapes ◽  
And Control ◽  
Statistical Results ◽  
Critical Resources

A multitude of factors, ranging from environmental to ideological, determine where human settlements are placed on the landscape. In archaeological contexts, finding the reasons behind settlement choice can be very difficult and often requires the use of ethnographic analogies and/or modeling in a geographic information system (GIS). Archaeologists have used one particular GIS-based method, viewshed analysis, to examine site features such as defensibility and control over economic hinterlands. I use viewshed analysis in this case study to determine how the natural and political landscapes affected the settlement location choices of the Late Woodland and early Historic Onondaga Iroquois. Proximity to critical resources and defensibility both factored into the decision of where communities would place villages. Although this study shows that resources, such as productive soils, had a more significant effect on settlement choice, Iroquois communities were also taking measures to maintain the defensibility of their villages. This examination displays how GIS analyses in archaeology can go beyond the statistical results and help us understand past behavior.

Human Behavior, Demography, and Paleoenvironment on the Colorado Plateaus

1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 537-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Dean ◽  
Robert C. Euler ◽  
George J. Gumerman ◽  
Fred Plog ◽  
Richard H. Hevly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
Mobility Shift ◽  
Resource Stress ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Regional Population ◽  
And Behavior

Archaeological and paleoenvironmental data are integrated in an investigation of culture change among the Anasazi of the American Southwest by a conceptual model of the interaction among environment, population, and behavior, the major determinants of human adaptive systems. Geological, palynological, and dendrochronological reconstructions of low and high frequency environmental variability coupled with population trends are used to specify periods of regional population-resource stress that should have elicited behavioral responses. Examination of these periods elucidates the range of responses employed and clarifies the adaptive contributions of mobility, shift of settlement location, subsistence mix, exchange, ceremonialism, agricultural intensification, and territoriality. These results help differentiate responses that are triggered by environmental variability from those stimulated primarily by demographic or sociocultural factors. These analyses also demonstrate the adaptive importance of amplitude, frequency, temporal, spatial, and durational aspects of environmental variability compared to the commonly invoked but simplistic contrast between “favorable” and “unfavorable” conditions.

A spatially explicit agent-based model of central place foraging theory and its explanatory power for hunter-gatherers settlement patterns formation processes

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 377-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaarel Sikk ◽  
Geoffrey Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Central Place Foraging ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Settlement Location

The behavioural ecological approach to anthropology states that the density and distribution of resources determines optimal patterns of resource use and also sets its constraints to grouping, mobility and settlement choice. Central place foraging (CPF) models have been used for analyzing foraging behaviours of hunter-gatherers and drawing a causal link from the volume of available resources in the environment to the mobility decisions of hunter-gatherers. In this study, we propose a spatially explicit agent-based CPF model. We explore its potential for explaining the formation of settlement patterns and test its robustness to the configuration of space. Building on a model assuming homogeneous energy distributions, we had to add several new parameters and an adaptation mechanism for foragers to predict the length of their stay, together with a heterogeneous environment configuration. The validation of the model shows that the spatially explicit CPF is generally robust to spatial configuration of energy resources. The total volume of energy has a significant effect on constraining sedentism as predicted by aspatial model and thus can be used on different environmental conditions. Still the spatial autocorrelation of resource distribution has a linear effect on optimal mobility decisions and needs to be considered in predictive models. The effect on settlement location choice is not substantial and is more determined by other characteristics of settlement location. This limits the CPF models in analyzing settlement pattern formation processes.

scholarly journals Regional Urban History: A Statistical and Cartographic Survey of Huron and Southern Bruce Counties, 1864-1981

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred A. Dahms
Keyword(s):  
Urban History ◽  
Motor Vehicle ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Rural Depopulation

Statistical and cartographie methods were used to trace the evolution of a group of settlements in Huron and Southern Bruce Counties from 1864 to 1981. Despite the fact that the number of settlements ranged from 30 to 95 during the period under consideration, there was remarkable stability among 15 large places which dominated the area economically at all periods. Competition, date of original settlement, location and changes in transport technology accounted for many of the trends observed. Places established early often continued to benefit from the "momentum" created by their size and age, while more recently developed service centres were adversely affected by the adoption of the motor vehicle and by rural depopulation. The study of a group of settlements over a long time period facilitated explanations of the evolution of individual places.

Perceptions of Liao urban landscapes. Political practices and nomadic empires

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hu Lin
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Landscape Approach ◽  
Sacred Places ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Spatial Strategies ◽  
Settlement Location ◽  
New Form ◽  
Liao Empire

AbstractIn traditional models, nomadic empires are often depicted as ‘parasitic’ on the neighbouring sedentary polities. Inspired by the development of anthropologies and archaeologies of colonialism, this paper adopts the political-landscape approach to address the emerging steppe urbanism of the nomadic Liao Empire. Perceptions of Liao urban landscapes are discussed from six viewpoints – settlement location, city walls, architectural orientation, camping sites, spatial segregation and sacred places – in order to understand the political practices of city making. I argue that the nomadic Khitan did not simply emulate spatial strategies of settled agricultural polities in the heartland of China, but rather produced a radically new form of urbanism that was brought forth as one of the creative instruments constitutive of authority, formed and transformed in the process of nomadic empire building in which traditions of nomadic pastoralism with ties to eastern Eurasia were manipulated and remade along with Chinese urban planning.

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