Modeling multivariate landscape affordances and functional ecosystem connectivity in landscape archeology

Abstract

Quantitative, digital statistics, and spatial analysis have proven to be useful tools in landscape archeological research. Herein, GIS-based data storage, manipulation, and visualization of environmental attributes and archeological records are among the most intensely applied methods to evaluate human-landscape interaction, movement patterns, and spatial behavior of past societies. Recent land use management and land cover change, however, have largely altered and modified present-day landscapes, which decreases the potential replicability of modern surface conditions to past ecosystem functionalities and the individual human landscape affordances. This article presents a comprehensive multivariate environmental analysis from a regional case study in the Upper Rhine Valley and exemplifies the bias of the archeological record based on modern land use, built-up, and surface change. Two major conclusions can be drawn: modern surfaces are the result of long-term past human landscape development, and the archeological data inherent in the landscape is strongly biased by modern human activity ranges, urban, agricultural and infrastructural development, and the configuration and perception of recent surface management.