Understanding inter-settlement visibility in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain with exponential random graph models for visibility networks Tom Brughmans*, Simon Keay, Graeme Earl Archaeological Computing Research Group, University of Southampton * Corresponding author:
[email protected] Mailing address: Tom Brughmans, Department of Computer & Information Science, University of Konstanz, Box 67, 78457 Konstanz, Germany. Suggested running head: Inter-settlement visibility in Iron Age and Roman Southern Spain Keywords: Roman Spain, Iberian archaeology, ERGM, network analysis, visibility analysis. 1. Introduction Traditional approaches to the archaeology of Roman Southern Spain have neglected the study of inter-site connections (Keay 1998a; Keay and Earl 2006). The transition from the Iron Age II (ca. 5th c. BC to 3rd c. BC, here referred to as Iberian) to the Roman period (ca. 3rd c. BC to 5th c. AD) is a most striking example of this. Iron Age II and Roman settlements and towns are often investigated independently, which is necessary for a critical understanding of the excavated materials, but it also sidelines the study of ways in which past communities might have interacted and of long-term continuity or discontinuity of occupation. This paper illustrates how a long-term and large-scale multi-site analysis allows for traditional research themes concerning inter-site connections in Iberian and Roman archaeology to be confronted. It focuses in particular on long-term changes in visibility patterns between urban settlements, a factor considered important for understanding Iberian settlement locations but largely ignored in Roman studies. It further compares these visibility patterns with the location of towns along transport routes, and the Early Imperial urban status of settlements, which are considered key factors for explaining locations of Roman settlements.