Ancient Pedestrians: Current Research in GIS-Based Movement Modeling for Archaeology

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.