Introducing visual neighbourhood configurations for total viewsheds

The Visual Neighbourhood Configurations (VNCs) approach is presented: a new approach for exploring complextheories of visual phenomena in landscapes by processing total viewsheds. Such theories most commonly con-cern the configuration of visual properties of areas around locations rather than solely the visual properties ofthe locations themselves. The typical approach to interpreting total viewshed results by classifying cell values istherefore problematic because it does not take cells’local areas into account. VNC overcomes this issue byenabling one to formally describe area-related aspects of the visibility theory, because it formally incorporatesthe area around a given viewpoint: the shape and size of neighbourhoods as well as, where relevant, thestructure and expectation of visual property values within the neighbourhood. Following a brief review thatserves to place the notion of the VNC in context, the method to derive visual neighbourhood configurations isexplained as well as theVNC analysis toolsoftware created to implement it. The use of the method is thenillustrated through a case-study of seclusion, hiding and hunting locales afforded by the standing stone settingsof Exmoor (United Kingdom

Exploring Transformations in Caribbean Indigenous Social Networks through Visibility Studies: the Case of Late Pre-Colonial Landscapes in East-Guadeloupe (French West Indies)

This paper presents a study of the visual properties of natural and Amerindian cultural landscapes in late pre-colonial East-Guadeloupe and of how these visual properties affected social interactions. Through a review of descriptive and formal visibility studies in Caribbean archaeology, it reveals that the ability of visual properties to affect past human behaviour is frequently evoked but the more complex of these hypotheses are rarely studied formally. To explore such complex hypotheses, the current study applies a range of techniques: total viewsheds, cumulative viewsheds, visual neighbourhood configurations and visibility networks. Experiments were performed to explore the control of seascapes, the functioning of hypothetical smoke signalling networks, the correlation of these visual properties with stylistic similarities of material culture found at sites and the change of visual properties over time. The results of these experiments suggest that only few sites in Eastern Guadeloupe are located in areas that are particularly suitable to visually control possible sea routes for short- and long-distance exchange; that visual control over sea areas was not a factor of importance for the existence of micro-style areas; that during the early phase of the Late Ceramic Age networks per landmass are connected and dense and that they incorporate all sites, a structure that would allow hypothetical smoke signalling networks; and that the visual properties of locations of the late sites Morne Souffleur and Morne Cybèle-1 were not ideal for defensive purposes. These results led us to propose a multi-scalar hypothesis for how lines of sight between settlements in the Lesser Antilles could have structured past human behaviour: short-distance visibility networks represent the structuring of navigation and communication within landmasses, whereas the landmasses themselves served as focal points for regional navigation and interaction. We conclude by emphasising that since our archaeological theories about visual properties usually take a multi-scalar landscape perspective, there is a need for this perspective to be reflected in our formal visibility methods as is made possible by the methods used in this paper.Digital ArchaeologyArchaeology of the America

Networks in Archaeology: Phenomena, Abstraction, Representation

The application of method and theory from network science to archaeology has dramatically increased over the last decade. In this article, we document this growth over time, discuss several of the important concepts that are used in the application of network approaches to archaeology, and introduce the other articles in this special issue on networks in archaeology. We argue that the suitability and contribution of network science techniques within particular archaeological research contexts can be usefully explored by scrutinizing the past phenomena under study, how these are abstracted into concepts, and how these in turn are represented as network data. For this reason, each of the articles in this special issue is discussed in terms of the phenomena that they seek to address, the abstraction in terms of concepts that they use to study connectivity, and the representations of network data that they employ in their analyses. The approaches currently being used are diverse and interdisciplinary, which we think are evidence of a healthy exploratory stage in the application of network science in archaeology. To facilitate further innovation, application, and collaboration, we also provide a glossary of terms that are currently being used in network science and especially those in the applications to archaeological case studies

The Equifinality of Archaeological Networks: an Agent-Based Exploratory Lab Approach

When we find an archaeological network, how can we explore the necessary versus contingent processes at play in the formation of that archaeological network? Given a set of circumstances or processes, what other possible network shapes could have emerged? This is the problem of equifinality, where many different means could potentially arrive at the same end result: the networks that we observe. This paper outlines how agent-based modelling can be used as a laboratory for exploring different processes of archaeological network formation. We begin by describing our best guess about how the (ancient) world worked, given our target materials (here, the networks of production and patronage surrounding the Roman brick industry in the hinterland of Rome). We then develop an agent-based model of the Roman extractive economy which generates different kinds of networks under various assumptions about how that economy works. The rules of the simulation are built upon the work of Bang (2006; 2008) who describes a model of the Roman economy which he calls the ‘imperial Bazaar’. The agents are allowed to interact, and the investigators compare the kinds of networks this description generates over an entire landscape of economic possibilities. By rigorously exploring this landscape, and comparing the resultant networks with those observed in the archaeological materials, the investigators will be able to employ the principle of equifinality to work out the representativeness of the archaeological network and thus the underlying processes

Historicising Material Agency: from Relations to Relational Constellations

Relational approaches have gradually been changing the face of archaeology over the last decade: analytically, through formal network analysis; and interpretively, with various frameworks of human-thing relations. Their popularity has been such, however, that it threatens to undermine their relevance. If everyone agrees that we should understand past worlds by tracing relations, then ‘finding relations’ in the past becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Focusing primarily on the interpretive approaches of material culture studies, this article proposes to counter the threat of irrelevance by not just tracing human-thing relations, but characterising how sets of relations were ordered. Such ordered sets are termed ‘relational constellations’. The article describes three relational constellations and their consequences based on practices of fine ware production in the Western Roman provinces (first century BC – third century AD): the fluid, the categorical, and the rooted constellation. Specifying relational constellations allows reconnecting material culture to specific historical trajectories, and offers scope for meaningful cross-cultural comparisons. As such a small theoretical addition based on the existing toolbox of practice-based approaches and relational thought can impact on historical narratives, and can save relational frameworks from the danger of triviality.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10816-015-9244-

Observations of lines-of-sight in Guadeloupe

Observations of lines-of-sight in Guadeloupe. This archive includes the digital information collected in the framework of the Guadeloupe visibility survey (GUA-V) performed by Tom Brughmans from 5 to 14 March 2015 in Guadeloupe. The archive contains spreadsheets with all line-of-sight observations made, the moment they were made and the locations they were made from (in the folder GUA-V_survey-observations), and CSV files with spatial information of the point locations and lines-of-sight in WKT format that can be imported into GIS software (in the folder GUA-V_GIS). The results were published in: Brughmans, T. et al., Exploring Transformations in Caribbean Indigenous Social Networks through Visibility Studies: the Case of Late Pre-Colonial Landscapes in East-Guadeloupe (French West Indies) Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 25, (June 2018). This research was carried out as part of Humanities in European Research Area (HERA), grant no 1133

Case study input data and results included in the article "Introducing visual neighbourhood configurations for total viewsheds", published in Journal of Archaeological Science 96 (August 2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2018.05.006.

Input data and results of case study experiments for the article "Introducing visual neighbourhood configurations for total viewsheds", published in Journal of Archaeological Science 96 (August 2018). The dataset references data published in Gillings, M., 2015. "Mapping invisibility: GIS approaches to the analysis of hiding and seclusion", J. Archaeol. Sci. 62, 1–14. The research was carried out as part of Humanities in European Research Area (HERA), grant no 1133

Observations of lines-of-sight in Grenada

A visibility survey identifying lines-of-sights between locations in Grenada. This archive includes the digital information collected in the framework of the Grenada visibility survey (GUA-V) performed by Tom Brughmans from 15 to 24 January 2016 in Grenada. The archive contains spreadsheets with all line-of-sight observations made, the moment they were made and the locations they were made from (in the folder GRE-V_survey-observations), and CSV files with spatial information of the point locations and lines-of-sight in WKT format that can be imported into GIS software (in the folder GRE-V_GIS). by Tom Brughmans in January 2016. This research was carried out as part of Humanities in European Research Area (HERA), grant no 1133