A stochastic model to simulate and predict archaeological landscape taphonomy: monitoring cultural landscape values based on an Iranian survey project

Niknami, K.A. (2007) A stochastic model to simulate and predict archaeological landscape taphonomy: monitoring cultural landscape values based on an Iranian survey project. Archeologia e Calcolatori, 18. pp. 101-120. ISSN 1120-6861

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Abstract

Archaeological scatters on the landscape present us with spatially patterned materials and features. Linking these spatial patterns to proximate aspects of scatter structure formation, and, ultimately, to understand the effect of land use systems in which landscape taphonomy occurred is one goal I see for landscape degradation analysis. While in the literature there has been a growing awareness of the pattern recognition problems posed by surface artifact distributions, due to the destruction or alteration of accompanying contextual information by landscape taphonomy processes, no substantive results have appeared in Iran. Analytical techniques for the description, classification and quantitative analysis of surface data remain poorly developed here and have often been incorrectly used and interpreted. These shortcomings demonstrate the need for some consideration to be given to the role of problem orientation in addressing the methodological and technical problems posed by surface scatter distributions. The main concern of this paper is to investigate and interpret the effects of land use patterns on the distribution of surface artifacts. My discussion focuses on providing a quantitative model which constitutes an analytical framework integrating methods and theory. This project uses an example provided by the archaeological survey project undertaken at Garrangu River Basin from 1992 onwards in Northwestern Iran. As a case study, land use dynamics of an archaeological landscape were measured through the study period, and Markov Chain models were used to project observed changes of artifact distributional structures over a 50 year period.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Statistics; excavation, survey and field techniques
Subjects:	900 Storia, Geografia e discipline ausiliarie > 930 Storia dei mondo antico fino al 499 ca. > 930.1 Archeologia (Classificare qui la Storia fino al 4000 a.C., l'Archeologia preistorica, le opere interdisciplinari sull'Archeologia) > 930.102 Archeologia - Opere miscellanee > 930.1028 Archeologia – Tecniche, metodologie, apparecchi e strumenti (comprende: Archeometria) > 930.10285 Archeologia – Applicazioni informatiche (comprende: tecniche di datazione) 900 Storia, Geografia e discipline ausiliarie > 930 Storia dei mondo antico fino al 499 ca. > 930.1 Archeologia (Classificare qui la Storia fino al 4000 a.C., l'Archeologia preistorica, le opere interdisciplinari sull'Archeologia) > 930.102 Archeologia - Opere miscellanee > 930.1028 Archeologia – Tecniche, metodologie, apparecchi e strumenti (comprende: Archeometria)
Depositing User:	Dott.ssa Paola Moscati
Date Deposited:	08 Sep 2009
Last Modified:	21 Apr 2017 11:20
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/1069

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