Challenges in Palaeolithic Spatial Analysis: Two Eurasian Case Studies
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 08/11/2019

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have proved to be an effective tool for Palaeolithic archaeologists, offering innovative approaches to landscape-related subjects. Multiple and variable GIS applications either desk-based and/or field-based have been widely used the past few decades in Palaeolithic research. However, there remains a notable lack of published literature addressing the integration of Palaeolithic archaeology with spatial analysis. The unique spatio-temporal scales involved in the study of the Palaeolithic require special consideration versus the study of later periods. Some forms of analysis used in historic and later prehistoric studies have a more complex relationship to the Palaeolithic record, or are of little or no relevance. Furthermore, some concepts in use in Palaeolithic studies, such as those modelling discrete habitats or biomes, are inherently anti-spatial. Two case studies from the Eurasian Palaeolithic will be used to illustrate these issues and discuss challenges, limitations and potentials. The first example uses environmental and geological data, and the concept of affordances, to look at dispersal through Lower-Middle Pleistocene Central Asia. The concept of affordances is suggested to challenge ED and site-centrism in the early Palaeolithic record. The second example explores opportunities and/or possibilities of hominin movement (routes) and survival (areas of activity) within the Lower – Middle Pleistocene Aegean ‘dry land’ (E-NE Mediterranean). The combination of archaeological evidence with the complex topography concept and spatial analysis is used here in order to develop a methodological approach to ‘unlock’ information kept in this type of dynamic contexts.

(Patrick Cuthbertson, Peny Tsakanikou)