Landscape Phenomenology, GIS and the Role of Affordance

That despite over a decade and a half of research, effective dialogue within archaeology between Geographic Information System (GIS) (on one hand) and experiential theory (on the other) remains elusive is nothing short of remarkable. The present discussion seeks to not only explore the reasons behind this impasse but to suggest that perhaps the time for dialogue has passed and rather than building bridges, researchers in archaeological GIS should instead begin to build their own theoretical frameworks. To this end, a discussion of affordance (and its potential application in the field of experiential analysis) is offered.     

“The Island of the Clouds”<Emphasis Type="Bold">:</Emphasis> The Archaeology of Life on the Margins in a Small-Scale Caribbean Island Landscape,Bequia (St. Vincent Grenadines) ca. 1700–1900 CE

The study of marginal Caribbean islands and economies remains understated within the wider context of the discipline of Caribbean historical archaeology. Research has tended to focus mainly upon the study of the dominant site form of the colonial period in the region: the industrial sugar plantation, and mainly upon the larger islands. This contribution moves the scale of analysis to the smaller Caribbean island landscape as a whole entity, and attempts to frame an archaeological biography of Bequia in the St. Vincent Grenadines over the last three hundred or so years. Further, we consider how more peripheral economic strategies that developed there over this period impacted upon this island landscape, how they are recognized archaeologically and what they can tell us about wider social and economic processes. Using landscape archaeology survey allied to GIS and historical cartographic analysis, the study presented here charts the emergence and development of a distinctive insular Caribbean socioeconomic identity very much on the margins.     

Modelling small-arms projectile distribution on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century battlefield sites

The application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies to archaeological investigations continues to provide new perspectives on historical events. Applied to battlefield archaeology, GIS analysis offers an efficient means of predicting potential artefact distribution across a conflict landscape. The approach proposed in this piece allows a user to test historical engagement scenarios within a desktop computing environment utilizing a customized GIS application. The study was intended to develop a framework that allowed for the input of quantifiable parameters in order to illustrate potential artefact patterning. The framework consists of two components, the trajectory model and the methodology for implementing it. Using this coarse-grained approach, it is our contention that small-arms projectile distribution can be estimated for a single engagement, and in doing so provide a more comprehensive view of potential artefact patterning than using KOCOA (Key Terrain, Observation and Fields of Fire, Concealment and Cover, Obstacles, Avenues of Approach/Withdrawal) terrain analysis or historic research alone. As an initial example to illustrate the efficacy of our model, this study uses data and parameters from the 1777 Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut landscape as a test case.     

Analysing Heritage Landscapes with Historical GIS: Contributions from problem-based inquiry and constructivist pedagogy

This article examines a practical classroom experience using GIS technologies to analyse aspects of a local heritage landscape. An inventory of historic buildings comprising architectural and construction details was revised in the field and then analysed using GIS software. Elements of the geographies of these buildings were displayed using thematic mapping and students used these maps to develop explanatory hypotheses and to suggest policy options for future management of the heritage landscape. Practically, the project demonstrated the contribution GIS can make to historical geography methods, engaged students in an externally supported research partnership working with real-world data, and suggested directions for local public policy formation. Pedagogically, the project demonstrated that historical GIS can be used effectively to shape problem-based inquiry and constructivist learning.     

Investigation of past archaeological landscapes using remote sensing and GIS: a multi-method case study from Mount Ida,Crete

Spatial analysis in geoarchaeological applications can be improved by implementing a wider set of geoecological parameters, in order to provide more precise results. The aim of the paper is to show how geoscientific ground-truth and techniques can be adopted for detailed archaeological studies using a comprehensive set of environmental variables that might have influenced ancient settlement patterns. The project focuses on spatial patterns of archaeological sites as well as Bronze Age communication paths in Central Crete by applying a multi-method approach (surveying, remote sensing, DEM analysis, least-cost analysis, candidate site detection, predictive modelling, etc.). In contrast to conventional archaeological GIS applications this enhanced strategy offers promising prospects regarding landscape and settlement modelling.     

A tetradic analysis of GIS and society using McLuhan's law of the media

The social implications of GIS have been debated over the past five years among scholars in several disciplines. GIS have been either conceived by practitioners as value‐free, neutral tools for problem‐solving or castigated by critical social theorists as socially biased technologies serving only corporate and state interests. Neither of these polarized views is very helpful in understanding the complex relationship between GIS and society. This paper argues that GIS are increasingly becoming media for communicating various crucial social and environmental information to the general public. By reconceptualizing GIS as media, the paper conducts a detailed tetradic analysis on the social implications of GIS using Marshall McLuhan's law of media. The analysis reveals the paradoxical and ambivalent nature of GIS technology. To make GIS fulfill democratic ideals in society, this paper calls for a shift of perspective, from viewing them as instruments for problem‐solving to viewing them as media for communication. This shift from instrumental to communicative rationality enables us to examine more critically and holistically how space, people and environment have been represented, manipulated and visualized in GIS and thus promotes a more critical and democratic GIS practice .     

基于GIS的南方传统聚落景观基因信息图谱的探索

南方地区环境生态因子多样,历史文化底蕴深厚,形成了极富特色的聚落景观。研究其所隐含的景观基因,对传统聚落的保护、开发都具有重要意义。本文分析了聚落景观基因的研究现状,探讨了聚落景观基因的概念、识别原则。在此基础上,探讨了构建聚落景观基因信息图谱的基本信息单元及其提取方法,并对建立景观基因信息图谱的技术思路进行了一定的尝试。最后,展望了景观基因信息图谱的研究意义和研究价值。     

Integrated GIS,remote sensing and geomorphologic approaches for the reconstruction of the landscape habitation of Thessaly during the neolithic period

The aim of this study is to manifest the contribution of integrated approaches such as GIS, geomorphology, remote sensing and DEM analysis for the detection of neolithic settlements, the modeling of habitation and the reconstruction of neolithic landscape in the area of Thessaly.     

Identifying Functional Urban Areas in Ecuador Using a Varying Travel Time Approach

Identifying integrated urban areas is an important issue for urban analysis and policy evaluation. In this article, we provide a set of FUAs suitable for monitoring urbanization in Ecuador, a less developed country without commuting data. We do so substituting such socioeconomic flows by available information on road structure, which allow us to work with accessibility based on a varying travel time. In order to build Ecuadorean FUAs, we calibrate our methodology considering Colombian data. We perform several sensitivity analysis and robustness checks to Ecuador with alternative sources of socioeconomic flows. We conclude that the use of GIS data and the calibrated thresholds provide a set of FUAs similar to the ones that would result of using commuting information.     

GIS,Archaeological Survey,and Landscape Archaeology on the Island of Kythera,Greece

Abstract

GIS and quantitative analysis are used to explore a series of simple but important issues in GIS-led survey. we draw on information collected during intensive archaeological field survey of the island of Kythera, Greece, and consider four questions: the relationship between terracing and enclosed field systems; the effect of vegetation on archaeological recovery; site definition and characterization in multi-period and artifact-rich landscapes; and site location modelling that considers some of the decisions behind the placing of particular Bronze Age settlements. we have chosen GIS and quantitative methods to extract patterns and structure in our multi-scalar dataset, demonstrating the value of GIS in helping to understand the archaeological record and past settlement dynamics. The case studies can be viewed as examples of how GIS may contribute to four stages in any empirically based landscape project insofar as they move from the spatial structure of the modern landscape, to the visibility and patterning of archaeological data, to the interpretation of settlement patterns.     

从地理学视角看城市历史文化景观集体记忆的研究

通过对国内外文献的分析,总结了景观、记忆与地理学的研究进展,指出景观、记忆与地方认同联系密切,而且景观与记忆的研究大多与历史文化景观相关。由于集体记忆所体现出的社会性,通过物质的和象征性的城市历史文化景观,去探究其集体记忆的认知空间和情感空间更具有现实意义。文章探讨了GIS和认知地图方法在城市集体记忆研究中的应用,并对佛山城市历史文化景观的集体记忆进行了实证研究。认为在全球化、城市化趋势下,从地理学视角,透过对历史文化景观集体记忆的分析,将有助于城市历史文化遗产持续性地保护和塑造城市地方感。     

转型期银川市建筑景观伊斯兰化的空间格局及其驱动机制

转型期,中国回族聚居区城市物质景观的伊斯兰化过程是文化建设、消费的新导向。对城市建筑景观伊斯兰化的探究,有利于剖析城市发展转型中景观文化的地方竞争策略与机制。以银川市为例,利用实地考察、深度访谈获取原始资料,尝试探讨1980-2015 年建筑景观伊斯兰化的空间格局及其驱动机制。结果表明,银川市建筑景观的伊斯兰式风格在逐步强化,伊斯兰式建筑类型趋于多元化,空间上呈现由“单核心区”向“多核心区”的格局演变模式,这主要是不同层级权力与社会阶层相互合作与博弈的结果。     

Defining the Early Bronze Age landscape: a remote sensing‐based analysis of Hafit tomb distribution in Wadi Andam,Sultanate of Oman

High‐resolution, freely available Google Earth software was successfully utilised in a remote‐sensing survey to locate and map thousands of Hafit tombs in a study area centring on Wadi Andam in the Sultanate of Oman. This dataset was refined for reliability with ground‐based fieldwork, and was analysed in the landscape using GIS software. The tombs are not randomly distributed across the study area; rather, the hydrology of the area appears to have been a dominant determining factor in the location of the graves. The structures were constructed in elevated, highly visible locations, possibly in an attempt to mark ownership of the landscape. The distribution of Hafit tombs is likely to provide some insight into the utilisation of the landscape in this period, with the evidence from Wadi Andam tentatively suggesting the presence of a nomadic pastoralist population. The development of this rapid, accurate and cost‐effective methodology has the potential to greatly facilitate the survey and analysis of Hafit tombs across the Oman peninsula.     

Re-Envisioning Tarascan Temporalities and Landscapes: Historical Being,Archaeological Representation,and Futurity in Past Social Processes

We apply a phenomenological perspective on landscape and geographic information system (GIS) applications in order to theorize how human perception and agency were likely implicated in processes of the formation of the late pre-Hispanic Tarascan State of West Central Mexico. The relatedness of landscape features in space or place-based perception has been well theorized; here, we further consider the relationality of places through time. In the changing landscape of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, the demographic and political core of the Tarascan State, temporality must have been vitally important to inhabitants of the basin. Utilizing GIS, we construct not only map-based analyses of the changing environment but also create viewsheds of past landscapes in order to see what past inhabitants of the basin would have seen in order to demonstrate that temporality would have been easily mapped in the landscape and its features. Finally, we discuss the role of temporality and cultural memory in an embodied landscape to model the various lake levels that past peoples could have anticipated through time based on their perceptions and memories.     

湘西传统聚落文化景观定量评价与区划

以湘西29个历史文化名村名镇或传统村镇为研究对象,分析传统聚落文化景观特征,构建了物质性文化景观和非物质文化景观相似性的指标体系,基于实地调查数据,制定了指标数据量化策略,应用层次聚类分析方法对文化景观进行相似性聚类,并利用GIS空间分析技术对聚类结果进行了分区。结果显示,北部为土家族聚落景观区,中部和西南部为苗族聚落景观区,多民族混合型聚落景观区在研究区中西部、中部和东南部呈条带状分布;土家族文化景观区的标志特征为吊脚楼;苗族文化景观区以宗族血缘为纽带,建筑以干栏建筑为主,其非物质文化景观以鼓舞和柳巾舞为典型特征;混合景观区主要表现为汉族传统文化特征。     

Experiencing Ancient Buildings from a 3D GIS Perspective: a Case Drawn from the Swedish Pompeii Project

In recent times, archaeological documentation strategies have been considerably improved by the use of advanced 3D acquisition systems. Laser scanning, photogrammetry and computer vision techniques provide archaeologists with new opportunities to investigate and document the archaeological record. In spite of this, the amount of data collected and the geometrical complexity of the models resulting from such acquisition processes have always prevented their systematic integration into a geographic information systems (GIS) environment. Recent technological advances occurred in the visualization of 3D contents, led us to overcome the aforementioned limitations and set up a work pipeline in which was possible to put the 3D models not only in the context of data visualization but also in the frame of spatial analysis. The case study described is a part of the Swedish Pompeii Project, a research and fieldwork activity started in 2000 with the purpose of recording and investigating an entire Pompeian city block, Insula V 1. As an additional part of the research, a laser scanning acquisition campaign was conducted in the last few years. The resulting models were thus meant to be used to develop further research lines: Among these, a 3D GIS system was expected to be set up with the purpose to (i) collect in the same geo-referenced environment, different typologies of documentation gathered in the context of the Swedish Pompeii Project; (ii) inter-connect 3D models with the project website; (iii) use the third dimension as a further analytical field of investigation, in the form of spatial analysis and cognitive simulation.     

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND HUMAN SPACE IN NORTH‐EASTERN IBERIA DURING THE THIRD CENTURY BC

By using GIS (Geographical Information System) visibility analysis, the visual surveillance of, and ways in which people engaged and experienced, an Iberian landscape north of Barcelona during the third century BC are explored. The study of visual surveillance from the hillforts that dominated the area is understood as a means to address issues of social structure and hierarchy. How Iberian people might have viewed and rationalized their world, which is an issue that has so far not been addressed within the theoretical approaches that currently characterize this area of Mediterranean archaeology, is explored here for the first time. Emphasis is placed on people's sense of place and on hillforts' prominence. Visibility analysis indicates a highly structured society, where each hillfort might have primarily controlled given zones of the landscape and might have informed others about events taking place there through an integrated visibility network. Whilst hillforts appear to have been sited according to the view that they offered, they do not seem to have been intended to maximize their own visual impact. Social and experiential approaches compellingly coincide to suggest a subdivision of this society between mountain and coastal communities in both practical and perceptual terms.     

The changing nature of GIS and the provision of formal GIS education in the UK: a case study

The arrival of the term Geographical Information System (GIS) in the 1960s soon created a demand for training and education in the use of this specialist hardware and software. Initially the main focus was on training people to use GIS, formal named degree programmes leading to postgraduate and undergraduate qualifications arrived later. This paper explores the changing landscape of U.K. degree level GIS education drawing on contemporary information from Higher Education Institution websites and a case study of the first single honours degree in GIS in Europe. The paper identifies a rise and fall in the number of named undergraduate “GIS” degrees since the late 1980s sandwiched between the continuation and development of postgraduate qualifications. In parallel with this trend the teaching and learning of GIS skills has emerged as a core component of undergraduate degree programmes with “Geography” in their title and in national school and degree level benchmarking statements for the discipline.     

GIS技术在萨拉乌苏考古遗址公园规划设计中的应用

传统规划设计工作的技术平台多以计算机辅助设计(CAD)为主,本工作以内蒙古自治区鄂尔多斯萨拉乌苏考古遗址公园规划为例,将Arc GIS Desktop作为技术平台应用到公园的规划设计工作中。首先,通过对规划区的实地踏勘,采集相关数据和资料,进行规划区数据库建设;其次,在数据库建设的基础上,通过GIS技术构建与现实环境对应的虚拟地理信息空间,实现规划区景观的三维可视化;最后,利用三维景观模型对现实地理环境进行模拟、分析及虚拟场景飞行。不同于传统CAD的二维工作平台,本工作借助GIS对空间数据和属性数据的强大处理功能及其三维景观可视化模块,为实现内蒙古鄂尔多斯萨拉乌苏考古遗址公园的科学规划提供辅助。     

Order in movement: a GIS approach to accessibility

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.