Multiscalar approaches to settlement pattern analysis

This paper has emphasized the highly reflexive approach necessary for the correct identification and interpretation of the processes behind settlement patterns. In our opinion, the key challenges are: (i) to define a sample/study area and its levels of search intensity appropriately (correcting for or exploring “edge effects” statistically where necessary); (ii) to assess and sub-divide site size, function and date range (analysing comparable features only and/or arbitrating uncertain cases statistically); (iii) to account for the resource structure of the landscape (either by only considering environmental homogenous sub-regions or by factoring resource preferences into the significance-testing stage of analysis), and (iv) to use techniques of analysis that are sensitive to detecting patterns at different spatial scales. The latter in particular is an area increasingly well-explored in other disciplines, but as yet with minimal impact on archaeological practice. There remains some value in Clark and Evan’s nearest neighbour function for identifying relationships between sites at one scale of analysis, but it may fail to detect larger-scale patterning. More critically, the dichotomy it encourages between “nucleated” and “dispersed” is at best an overly simplistic model and, at worst, bears little relationship to the reality of settlement organization, which at different scales can show both nucleated and dispersed components. In our Kytheran case study, there is obviously further work to be done, but even with the existing dataset, we have shown that using a combination of Monte Carlo testing, frequency distributions, local density mappings and Ripley’s K function allows a more sensitive assessment of multiscalar patters and therefore a more critical evaluation of the processes underlying settlement distributions

The data deluge

Archaeology has wandered into exciting but daunting territory. It faces floods of new evidence about the human past that are largely digital, frequently spatial, increasingly open and often remotely sensed. The resulting terrain is littered, both with data that are wholly new and data that were long known about but previously considered junk. This paper offers an overview of this diluvian information landscape and aims to foster debate about its wider disciplinary impact. In particular, I would argue that its consequences: a) go well beyond the raw challenges of digital data archiving or manipulation and should reconfigure our analytical agendas; b) can legitimately be read for both utopian and dystopian disciplinary futures; and c) re-expose some enduring tensions between archaeological empiricism, comparison and theory-building

Travel and interaction in the Greek and Roman world. A review of some computational modelling approaches

Inferring dynamic past behaviours from the static archaeological record is always a challenge, but computational and quantitative techniques can be helpful. In particular, they can provide useful insight on patterns of movement and interaction, by better characterising existing archaeological evidence, suggesting simple models of mobile decision-making or proposing expected patterns against which the observed record can be compared. This paper reviews the range of modelling options now available for understanding the movement and interaction behind the archaeological and historical record. There are increasing opportunities not only to pick and choose between different modelling approaches, but also to integrate them in a more theoretically and practically satisfactory way

Mediterranean containerization

The Mediterranean has long played host to unusually intense patterns of maritime-led exchange, involving both products made beyond the basin and local, culturally distinctive goods such as oils and wines that continue to be well-known markers of the region's economies and lifestyles today. Protecting these commodities, and sometimes highly emblematic of them, have been specialised physical packages, of which clay amphoras are perhaps the most well-known early examples. In contrast, modern steel shipping containers, occurring in unusual densities at the Mediterranean pinch-points of globalised trade, represent only a latest phase of this cultural tradition. Mediterranean containers therefore have a continuous history spanning at least five thousand years and one that, worldwide, offers a uniquely long-lived, continuous and detailed record of economic specialisation. Remarkable, then, that there has been as yet so little consideration of this tradition over its full time-span. This paper makes the case for developing a more strongly longitudinal, comparative and cautiously evolutionary perspective on these highly iconic, material forms

Value, Authority and the Open Society. Some Implications for Digital and Online Archaeology

This paper argues that two major related trends -- the now substantial circulation of digital archaeological datasets and the increasing number of ways in which people engage with archaeology via online media -- should encourage us to reassess what value we and others wish to place on the past, how we share archaeological information and what kinds of archaeological communities we wish to promote. One useful approach to these questions is via social anthropological theory that addresses valuation, authority and the structuring of inter-personal relationships. Understanding the degree to which these features of social life are, or are not, transformed by new digital communication technologies also helps us to re-conceptualise archaeological communication with new priorities and opportunities in mind. This paper explores these ideas further via two case studies involving the sharing of spatial or spatio-temporal knowledge: (a) open data and open source software for spatial analysis, and (b) neogeography and geocaching

Pandora's pithos

Large clay jars have long been popular for both wet and dry storage, but are particularly associated with Mediterranean wines and olive oil. Such ‘pithoi’ also underpin important historical shifts in social complexity and landscape investment, play prominent roles in Mediterranean social life, and thus offer an excellent opportunity to think about the deeper consequences of container culture

Stonemasons and craft mobility in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean

This chapter considers the evidence for craft mobility and cultural learning amongst stonemasons in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. It draws on a range of cross-cultural comparative evidence, as well as placing particular emphasis on case studies from Egypt and the Aegean in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC

Foreword

This article is the foreword to a special issue of this Victoria University of Wellington Law Review celebrating Professor Bill Atkin's 40th year at the Victoria University of Wellington Faculty of Law. The issue contains personal tributes to Professor Atkin, as well as articles focused on Professor Atkin's areas of focus including family law, torts, accident compensation, medico-legal issues, and welfare law.&nbsp