Philip Verhagen - Computational Approaches to the Study of Movement in Archaeology: Theory, Practice and Interpretation of Factors and Effects of Long Term Landscape Formation and Transformation

Through time, societies have not only learned how to utilise resources from the environment, but they have also acquired specialised knowledge, adapting to it. Mountain regions are often very special environments due to their diversity, strategic significance and marginality. Mountain contexts are of great importance for people living within and neighbour areas due not only to their richness in natural resources and their great biodiversity, but also because of their peculiar socio-cultural dynamics, whose development has tended to be at the margins located often far away from the centres of political power. This marginality can be also extended to movement within these regions, where mountain ranges regularly constitute mighty obstacles due to their natural configuration, playing a central role in strategy, commerce and travelling. Movement in these environments is frequently localised and accommodated to the nature and steepness of the terrain. Travelling through natural passageways and optimal routes such as mountain passes and internal valleys is regular in these regions, and although the optimal employment of the landscape not always prime in human societies, in certain special conditions such as these, the search for optimality can have serious advantages. In the case of western Sierra Morena (Spain), its configuration shaped both, the very forms of transit through the mountains and the historical routes of communication that traverse Andalucia. In this paper we will explore a GIS methodology developed specifically to identify particular characteristics of the landscape that are relevant for movement such as passageways, crossing points and natural areas of transit. In our particular case study, the identification of such areas allowed us: (1) to examine the role that natural accessibility might had for late prehistoric societies of Southern Iberia in the location of their habitats and symbolic places; and (2) to determine through the examination of historical and modern paths, to what extent zones of optimal accessibility have been used through time in the establishment of communication routes.