GIS Tools for Intra-spatial Analyses: The Portuguese Mesolithic Cabeço da Amoreira Case Study

Summary

The case of the Portuguese Muge shellmounds (Tagus valley, central Portugal), and specifically the case of the Cabeço da Amoreira site, is one of the most interesting regions to study the last hunter-gatherers in Western Europe. However, these sites, are very large with long and complicated sequences and, until recently, had very little excavation control and thus data were not appropriate for spatial analyses. During the last decade, our team used new and precise excavation techniques resulting in high resolution provenience data for all types of artefact classes.

This paper focus on the Cabeço da Amoreira data, representing at least 7 time horizons, based on GIS analyses of intra-spatial distribution of different categories of artifacts. The use of the ArcGIS software was essential for the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, allowing the establishment of intrasite spatial relationships through the use of statistical procedures such as the Average Nearest Neighbor and the Kernel Density Estimation. Distributions and correlations of artifacts allowed the identification of different functional areas, the use and organization of space, and the interpretation of relevant site formation processes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20619