Spatial pattern of archaeological site distributions on the eastern shores of Lake Urmia, northwestern Iran

Kamal Aldin Niknami, Ahmad Chaychi Amirkhiz, Fatemeh Farsh Jalali

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 2009, 20, 261-276

Abstract

The Lake Urmia survey project carried out from 2004 to 2006 in north-western Iran was aimed at obtaining a reliable overview of the occurrence of archaeological sites as well as to identify the spatial pattern of such sites across the area. This paper explores archaeological approaches to regional scale in dynamic landscape. Regional interpretation and the spatial statistical methods used to describe sites distribution, orientation, and pattern are often most reliant on point data. This paper also demonstrates how point pattern analysis offers quantitative information to the spatial process modeling of the natural and cultural landscape, which will aid at establishing a baseline from which other attributes of higher measurements for archaeological elements can be confidently mapped, described and modeled within a GIS. Point pattern analysis of archaeological sites has involved the advantages of visualization and iteration offered by a GIS. Therefore the significance of this study is three-fold. 1) it applies spatial analysis within a GIS to the understanding of archaeological site distributions. 2) it uses quantitative methods that are now available within a GIS to assess inferences concerning the survey data collected from the study area. Finally, this study offers insight into a methodology that is suitable to the spatial examination of more complicated surface data in landscape archaeology concept.

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