Settlement Configuration and Social Structural Change: An Example of Graphic-Based Spatial Analysis from Kucapungane of Southern Taiwan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation examines the social structure change revealed by the interpretations of the abandoned settlement layouts through graphic-based spatial analysis for Kucapungane area of southern Taiwan.

Kucapungane Rukai, an Austronesian indigenous tribe in Taiwan, has several abandoned settlements. The Kucapungane people lived in the Old-Kucapingane for the past 600-700 years. However, they were forced to move several places 50 years ago due to government policies and landslides triggered by typhoons. Previous studies of structural change of Kucapungane society was interpreted from ethnographic data majorly. The result of the changes in traditional lifestyle and culture value was forced by government’s capitalistic policy. This interpretation becomes a normal perspective for the Kucapungane social structural change. However, applications of spatial technologies in archaeology began in the early 1980s. The graphic-based technologies brought about new research perspectives for social structural change. This study tries to use graphic-based spatial analysis to examine social structure at two Kucapungane settlement configurations (Old-Kucapungane and Tulalekelre), and reconstruct the social structural change process.

The results of this research not only highlight the different interpretations between archaeological and ethnographic data but also demonstrates the potential of comparing these interpretations to better understand social structural change variability of Kucapungane.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25364