Session Abstracts

Graeme Earl, Eleftheria Paliou, David Wheatley
Spatial analysis in past built spaces

Computer-based spatial analysis has been widely applied to the investigation of historic and prehistoric space, both domestic and ritual. Typically, however, the focus has been on larger spatial scales (‘landscapes’) rather than urban spaces and buildings. More recently, a range of formal spatial analytical methods have begun to be developed for the formal investigation of human engagement, experience and socialisation within the built environment, which emanate from the fields of architecture, urban studies and geography. The various methodologies that have been suggested for the study of past urban spaces, and specifically in an archaeological research context, differ significantly in the exact modelling method used, the scale and the specific aspects of human engagement with built space they seek to investigate. Besides space syntax approaches (axial maps, isovists, visibility graphs), GIS-based approaches such as viewshed and GIS-T network analysis have been proposed, as well as methodologies that seek to exploit the analytical capabilities inherent in 3D modelling software (visibility analysis in 3D spaces, agent-based approaches). These methodologies have already been applied to a variety of archaeological contexts as diverse as Iron Age Kerkenes Dag, the Minoan Bronze Age, Medieval Towns, Roman Pompeii and Byzantine and Victorian churches.
This session invites archaeological and inter-disciplinary papers on a variety of spatial analysis methods for the investigation of experience and social meaning of historic and prehistoric urban spaces. Participants are encouraged to give emphasis to the usefulness of these methodologies in the understanding of past built environments, and also to address issues of the theoretical positioning of such analyses within wider archaeological discourses. Relationships between urban space, agency and social practice may provide one focus for this.

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