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.
This 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.

lgli/Least Cost Analysis of Social Landscapes.pdf

lgrsnf/Least Cost Analysis of Social Landscapes.pdf

zlib/no-category/Devin A. White, Sarah L Surface-Evans/Least Cost Analysis of Social Landscapes: Archaeological Case Studies_24710173.pdf

Devin Alan White; Sarah L Surface-Evans

Utah State Historical Society

United States, United States of America

1st, First Edition, FR, 2012

Salt Lake City, Utah, 2012

Salt Lake City, 2014

1st, January 2012

EBSCO

{"isbns":["1607811715","9781607811718"],"last_page":304,"publisher":"University of Utah Press"}

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Intro -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Chapter 1: An Introduction to the Least Cost Analysis of Social Landscapes -- Chapter 2: Using Least Cost Path Analysis to Reinterpret Late Upper Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherer Procurement Zones in Northern Spain -- Chapter 3: Connecting the Dots: Least Cost Analysis, Paleogeography, and the Search for Paleoindian Sites in Southern Highland Peru -- Chapter 4: Wandering the Desert: Least Cost Path Modeling for Water Transport Trails in the Jornada Mogollon Region, Fort Bliss, South-Central New Mexico -- Chapter 5: A Method for Multiple Cost-Surface Evaluation of a Model of Fort Ancient Interaction -- Chapter 6: Walking and Watching: New Approaches to Reconstructing Cultural Landscapes through Space Syntax Analysis -- Chapter 7: Social Interaction at the Maya Siteof Copán, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach to Configurational Analysis -- Chapter 8: Cost Catchments: A Least Cost Application for Modeling Hunter-Gatherer Land Use -- Chapter 9: Modeling the Consequences of Village Site Location: Least Cost Path Modeling in a Coupled GIS and Agent-Based Model of Village Agropastoralism in Eastern Spain -- Chapter 10: No Crows Made Mounds: Do Cost-Distance Calculations of Travel Time Improve Our Understanding of Southern Appalachian Polity Size? -- Chapter 11: Prehistoric Trail Networks of the Western Papaguería: A Multifaceted Least Cost Graph Theory Analysis -- Chapter 12: Seven Solutions for Seven Problems with Least Cost Pathways -- Chapter 13: Realism, Reality, and Routes: Evaluating Cost-Surface and Cost-Path Algorithms -- Chapter 14: Least Cost Pathway Analysis in Archaeological Research: Approaches and Utility -- Contributors -- Index

2023-03-20