Modeling Prehistoric Paths in Bronze Age Northeast England by Christian Alvez A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the USC Graduate School University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science (Geographic Information Science and Technology) December 2016 Copyright ® 2016 by Christian Alvez. All rights reserved To my grandmother Aurora who taught me how to read and write; to my parents Alfredo and Amelita, and my brothers Jeff and John for showing me love; to Tatsuya for supporting and listening; to Ariel and Yanin for giving me inspiration; and finally to Wayne Karr who taught me how to care for and love others. Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ vii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... viii List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... ix Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background and Motivation ................................................................................................2 1.1.1. Least Cost Path analysis .............................................................................................3 1.1.2. Least Cost Path in archaeology ..................................................................................4 1.2 Study Area ...........................................................................................................................5 1.2.1. The Beaker Culture ....................................................................................................7 1.3 Research Objectives ...........................................................................................................12 1.4 Thesis Organization ...........................................................................................................12 Chapter 2 Background and Related Work .................................................................................... 13 2.1 GIS and Archaeology .........................................................................................................13 2.1 LCP Overview ...................................................................................................................14 2.1.1. LCP Studies in archaeology .....................................................................................14 2.2 Gathering Data ...................................................................................................................16 2.2.1. DEMs .......................................................................................................................16 2.2.2. Bronze Age cultural data: Settlement and burial site points ....................................19 2.2.3. Other cost variables ..................................................................................................20 2.3 Generating a Cost Surface .................................................................................................21 2.3.1. Anisotropic Modeling: Tobler’s hiking function and Naismith’s rule ....................22 2.4 LCP Algorithm ...................................................................................................................23 2.5 Validity Assessment ...........................................................................................................23 Chapter 3 Methods ........................................................................................................................ 25 iii 3.1 Data ....................................................................................................................................25 3.1.1. Acquiring and preparing the cultural dataset ...........................................................25 3.1.2. Generating the origin and destination points ...........................................................27 3.1.3. Acquiring the DEM ..................................................................................................34 3.1.4. Creating the slope raster ...........................................................................................36 3.2 Methodology ......................................................................................................................38 3.2.1. Executing the Path Distance tool .............................................................................40 3.2.2. Generating LCPs ......................................................................................................41 3.2.3. Conducting the validity assessment .........................................................................42 Chapter 4 Results .......................................................................................................................... 44 4.1 Executing LCPs .................................................................................................................44 4.2 Cluster LCPs ......................................................................................................................46 4.2.1. Cluster 1 ...................................................................................................................46 4.2.2. Cluster 2 ...................................................................................................................48 4.2.3. Cluster 3 ...................................................................................................................49 4.2.4. Cluster 4 ...................................................................................................................51 4.3 Inter-cluster LCPs ..............................................................................................................53 4.4 Aerial Imagery Comparisons .............................................................................................56 Chapter 5 Discussion and Conclusions ......................................................................................... 62 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 68 Appendix A: Settlement Data Record Sources ............................................................................. 76 iv List of Figures Figure 1 Study Area – Northeast England ...................................................................................... 6 Figure 2 Beaker artifact samples – pottery, flint tools, and arrowheads ...................................... 10 Figure 3 Overview of selected clusters of settlement and burial sites .......................................... 27 Figure 4 Cluster 1with origin and destination points (LCP nodes) .............................................. 29 Figure 5 Cluster 2 with origin and destination points (LCP nodes) ............................................. 30 Figure 6 Cluster 3 with origin and destination points (LCP nodes) ............................................. 31 Figure 7 Cluster 4 with origin and destination points (LCP nodes) ............................................. 32 Figure 8 Inter-cluster origin and destination points (LCP nodes) ................................................. 33 Figure 9 STRM 30 m resolution ................................................................................................... 35 Figure 10 ASTER GDEM V2 30 m resolution ............................................................................. 35 Figure 11 Clusters in smaller DEM (with hillshade effect) derived from the larger SRTM DEM .................................................................................................................. 36 Figure 12 Slope raster with cultural sites ...................................................................................... 37 Figure 13 The Path Distance model, with the origin, cost surface, and backlink surface indicated as model parameters .............................................................................................. 39 Figure 14 The Cost Path model, with the destination, cost surface, backlink surface, and the converted LCP raster (LCP_Vector) indicated as model parameters .................................... 39 Figure 15 Path Distance tool inputs .............................................................................................. 40 Figure 16 Cost Path tool inputs ..................................................................................................... 42 Figure 17 Overview of cluster and inter-cluster primary and modified LCPs ............................. 45 Figure 18 Overview of Cluster 1 LCPs with original and modified segments ............................. 46 Figure 19 Detail of Cluster 1 – Segment 4 (Harehope Hill – West Plain Henge) ....................... 47 Figure 20 Detail of Cluster 1 – Segment 5 (West Plain Henge – Lookout Plantation) and Modified Segment 4 (Cheviot Quarry – Lookout Plantation) ..............................................