GIS modeling of lithic procurement in highlands: Archaeological and actualistic approach in the Andes

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to model human movements and lithic procurement costs in high-altitude environments on the basis of geographical aspects. Using GIS we analyzed movement costs that can be applied as of early occupation times in the Southern Andes. We compared curves used to analyze pedestrian movements and contrasted actualistic and ethnographic information in the Andes. We adapted the Tobler Offpath Hiking algorithm to GIS and estimated movement costs in the process of exploiting lithic resources that can be considered within local, non-local and extra-regional categories in Andean topographies as a function of isochrons or times of movement. We propose “local” to be the range of space which can be accessed in one 8-hour movement day. On this scale we establish a ranking regarding the costs of accessing the sources of raw material. The resulting movement scales can be useful for works in comparable environments and in different stages of occupation of high-altitude spaces.