Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
This session presents recent work on archaeological applications of GIS-based pedestrian models that moves the field forward in both methods and theoretical framing. Archaeological studies of past movement are often complex tools applied to complex questions with non-trivial computational requirements, theoretical questions about reconstructing movement and the status of models as evidence, and the potential to speak to topics like power, identity, and economy. This session seeks papers that ask “how and why do people move” from individual bodies to continental landscapes, deep time to modern day, and diverse global perspectives. What factors influence how people move? How can we use movement models to understand larger political, social, and economic relations? Papers that develop new methods or refine established ones to approach questions of movement, the definition of appropriate and interesting research questions about movement and mobility approachable with this suite of methods, and case studies that model ancient movement are welcome.
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-5 of 5)
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Describing Accessibility Landscapes: GIS Models of Movement Potential in Iron Age Southeast Arabia (2025)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents analysis of movement potential at regional and local scale to describe the accessibility landscape of Iron Age (1300-300 BCE) Southeast Arabia. Interpreting the reasons for and outcomes of changing settlement patterns rely on descriptions of accessibility. During the Iron Age,...
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<html>Seasons of Movement: Omnidirectional Connectivity Modeling of Indigenous Place-Making in the Great Bay Estuary (<i>P8bagok</i>)</html> (2025)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Movement has featured in archaeological GIS efforts to analyze social uses of landscape since the start. Important work has focused on Least Cost Paths. However, dividing landscapes into a binary of key sites to be connected and a matrix of land between does not always capture the scope of...
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Imperial networks and local resistance at the edge of a highland empire in the Middle East/South Caucasus (Iron Age Urartu) (2025)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of ancient states and empires has often suffered from an under-appreciation of internal spatial/temporal variability in material culture and means of territorial control. Spatial network conceptions facilitate a better understanding of ancient states and empires’ development and forms of...
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People Moving Pottery: Modeling the Circulation of Fourmile Polychrome in East-central Arizona (2025)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southwest archaeologists have long relied on the exchange and movement of decorated pottery to infer cultural boundaries, migrations, and broader social networks. However, little investigation has been done on the processes or paths used to transport pottery within these social networks. The...
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The Road Less Traveled By: Integrating Least Cost Path Modeling with Ethnographic and Historical Evidence for Analysis of Aksumite Trade Networks (2025)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Least Cost Path (LCP) Modeling, often performed by Geographic Information System (GIS) software, has had important impacts in archaeology over the past few decades. Optimality centered models of human behavior have been criticized for overemphasizing the role of energetic efficiency. However, it is...