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Process Formalization and Conceptual Modelling in the Study of Territorial Dynamics
- Edited by Graeme Earl, Tim Sly, David Wheatley, Iza Romanowska, Constantinos Papadopoulos, Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Angeliki Chrysanthi
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- Book:
- Archaeology in the Digital Era
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 16 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 01 February 2014, pp 438-448
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Summary
Abstract:
The ArchaeDyn team has investigated territorial dynamics by comparing areas over long time spans between the Neolithic and Modern times. Datasets on various themes have been shared and indicators and analytical models produced. This paper presents both the formalization of scientific process used in the ArchaeDyn programme and a conceptual model of the systems and components so that synchronic and diachronic comparisons can be made. The aim is to clarify the transition from an archaeological feature (a site or an artefact) or a recording unit (survey area) as the input, to the characterization of spaces describing a system as the output. The approach is described by the successive steps corresponding to semantic, spatial or temporal analytical processes from the prospecting level to the level of complex objects such as the territories and spaces under study. These complex objects— consumption areas, agricultural areas and settlement patterns—are the subsystems in the dynamics of human territorial occupation. The main contribution of this formalization is that it describes synthetically the hypotheses tested and the approach implemented. In addition, it provides a collective validation of the research team's reasoning.
Keywords:
Models, Formalization, Analytical Process, Agricultural Areas, Settlement Patterns, Consumption Areas
Introduction
This paper is the outcome of collaboration as part of the ArchaeDyn programme funded by France's ANR (ANR-08-BLAN-0157) (Gandini et al. 2012). The ArchaeDyn programme was launched in 2004 to study territorial dynamics from Neolithic to Modern times. The programme is conducted by three workgroups focusing on separate themes: (i) the movement of raw materials and manufactured objects, (ii) agricultural areas; (iii) settlement patterns and territories.
All three workgroups exploit archaeological inventories collated as part of other scientific programmes. The ArchaeDyn members have implemented an analytical approach for sharingthese datasets and producing indicators and analytical models with which to compare geographical spaces over large time spans (Gandini et al. 2012; Poirier and Tolle 2008).
The sheer diversity of analysis produced in the eight years the programme has been running (for the same purpose of describing and comparing different ‘pieces of space’ occupied by humans) means that, although the analytical methods are properly applied, the process is not always clear at each stage.
From Space to Graphs to Understand Spatial Changes Using Medieval and Modern Fiscal Sources
- Edited by Graeme Earl, Tim Sly, David Wheatley, Iza Romanowska, Constantinos Papadopoulos, Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Angeliki Chrysanthi
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- Book:
- Archaeology in the Digital Era
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 16 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 01 February 2014, pp 420-427
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- Chapter
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Summary
Abstract:
Medieval and modern fiscal documents provide valuable information about the spatial organization of the countryside. They usually describe each plot, indicating the owner's name, the surface area, the land use, the neighbours, and the location. These lists, which contain hundreds of plots with their relative location, have great potential for analyzing the spatial pattern of village territories and the evolution of the landscape, especially when there is a series of successive documents for the same territory, as is often the case. Nevertheless, they have been dramatically under-exploited because it is difficult to reconstruct the landscape from fieldbooks without maps - and field-maps in France only appeared in the 1^-18^ centuries. To overcome this difficulty, we propose a model of plots described in fiscal documents based on the use of graph theory. The main idea is to take spatial information from registers and former plot plans and transform it into graphs. The translation of spatial data into graphs should allow a bridge to be created between mapped and unmapped historical documents. On these graphs, each plot corresponds to a vertex and each neighbourhood relationship (adjacency) - visible on a plan or described in the documents as a neighbour - to an edge. The work is carried out using two complementary approaches: the first focuses on establishing a database dealing with records without maps. The second extracts the graph from former plot plans in a Geographic Information System. The goal is to match the graphs produced by these two approaches in order to analyze spatial changes by comparing the graphs, which is not possible from plans or registers alone. First, the protocol to transform plot plans into graphs in the GIS will be developed. Secondly, we will consider the possibilities of comparing two graphs corresponding to two successive states in the GIS.
Keywords:
Fieldbook, Cadaster, Geographic Information Systems, Graph Theory, Medieval Ages, Modern Period
Among allthedocumentsavailabletohistorians and archaeologists to reconstruct the dynamics of land use during mediaeval and modern times (13th- 18th centuries), there is a category of sources that is particularly rich in spatial organization data, namely land registers including terriers (fieldbooks) and cadastres, commonly called “compoix” in the south of France.