Spatial Analysis and Social Spaces Topoi Berlin Studies of the Ancient World Edited by Excellence Cluster Topoi Volume 18 De Gruyter Spatial Analysis and Social Spaces Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Interpretation of Prehistoric and Historic Built Environments Edited by Eleftheria Paliou Undine Lieberwirth Silvia Polla De Gruyter ISBN 978-3-11-026594-1 e-ISBN 978-3-11-026643-6 ISSN 2191-5806 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Dörlemann Satz GmbH & Co. KG, Lemförde Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen o Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Preface The current volume is the product of an international meeting entitled “Spatial analysis in past built environments” which took place in the framework of the Excellence Cluster “To- poi: The formation and transformation of space and knowledge in ancient civilizations”. Topoi is an interdisciplinary research network which is concerned with the study of the ancient world. It was launched in 2008 and is mainly represented by two universities and four research institutions based in Berlin: the Free University, the Humboldt University, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for the History of Science, and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK). The cluster is part of the Excellence Initi- ative of the German federal and state government and involves the participation of more than 200 researchers from diverse disciplines, such as archaeology, geography, history, cul- tural studies, linguistics, philology, philosophy, theology, and history of science. To date, the network consists of about 50 research groups that investigate the interdependence of space and knowledge in the civilisations of the Mediterranean, the Ancient Near East, Black Sea and Eurasian steppe regions from the 6th millennium BC to around 500 AD. This research programme acknowledges and explores the important role of spaces, spatial systems and various types of space-related knowledge in the development of ancient cultures. Since 2008 the Topoi Excellence Cluster has funded and organised at least one inter- national conference or workshop each month, and has published selected contributions presented at these meetings in the “Topoi. Berlin Studies of the Ancient World” series. This series has proven extremely useful for compiling an up-to-date overview of the scientific results of the cluster, and reflects the breadth and multidisciplinary focus of research in Topoi. The present volume is also part of this publication scheme and is expected to con- tribute conceptually and methodologically to key research areas in the Topoi Excellence Cluster. The editors would like to express their sincere gratitude to all the participants of the “Spatial analysis in past built environments” workshop and the contributors of this volume: Konstantinos Athanasiou, Gareth Beale, John Bintliff, Graeme Earl, Kevin Fisher, Piraye Hacigüzeller, Bill Hillier, Quentin Letesson, Giles Morrow, Nils Müller-Scheeßel, Eleftheria Paliou, Konstantinos Papadopoulos, Laura Pecchioli, Sabine Reinhold, Benjamin Stangl, Hanna Stöger, Ulrich Thaler, Peter Trebsche, Akkelies Van Ness, Giorgio Verdiani, and David Wheatley. We are also very grateful to the anonymous reviewers of the volume for their critical and thoughtful comments on individual chapters and the book as a whole. Furthermore, special thanks go to Geoff Sammon, Carsten Schmieder, Vasko Demou and Rocco Steputat for their assistance in editing and proof-reading the final manuscript, and to all the students who helped during the days of the workshop. Hauke Ziemssen and Nadine PREFACE V Riedl as members of the central administration of the Topoi Excellence Cluster have assisted the organisation of the workshop and the publication of the volume in many ways, and for this reason we are much indebted to them. Last but not least, we would like to thank Birgit Nennstiel for designing the cover of this volume. This publication would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Topoi Excellence Cluster, which fully funded the “Spatial analysis in past built environments” workshop and covered all the publishing costs of this volume. Eleftheria Paliou, Undine Lieberwirth, Silvia Polla Contents Preface ....................... V Eleftheria Paliou Introduction ..................... 1 Bill Hillier Spatial analysis and cultural information: the need for theory as well as method in space syntax analysis .............. 19 Quentin Letesson From building to architecture: the rise of configurational thinking in Bronze Age Crete .................. 49 Eleftheria Paliou Visibility analysis in 3D built spaces: a new dimension to the understanding of social space ............... 91 David Wheatley Connecting landscapes with built environments: visibility analysis, scale and the senses .................. 115 Constantinos Papadopoulos and Graeme Earl Formal three-dimensional computational analyses of archaeological spaces ....................... 135 Kevin D. Fisher Investigating monumental social space in Late Bronze Age Cyprus: an integrative approach .................167 Piraye Hacıgüzeller and Ulrich Thaler Three tales of two cities? A comparative analysis of topological, visual and metric properties of archaeological space in Malia and Pylos ....203 John Bintliff Spatial analysis of past built environment: houses and society in the Aegean from the Early Iron Age till the impact of Rome ......263 CONTENTS VII Akkelies van Nes Indicating street vitality in excavated towns. Spatial configurative analyses applied to Pompeii ................277 Hanna Stöger The spatial signature of an insula neighbourhood of Roman Ostia . 297 List of contributors ...................317 About the editors ....................319 VIII CONTENTS Eleftheria Paliou Introduction 1 The conception of this volume In recent years a range of formal methods of spatial analysis have been developed for the study of human engagement, experience and socialisation within built space. Many, although not all, of these emanate from the fields of architectural and urban studies, and draw upon social theories of space that lay emphasis on the role of visibility, movement and accessibility in the built environment. Encouraged by the growing availability of com- putational methods in the last decade, these approaches have been gaining in popularity among researchers of prehistoric and historical built spaces, and have been given increas- ingly greater weight in archaeological interpretations. The conception of the two-day conference “Spatial analysis in past built spaces”, which took place at the Topoi Building (Free University, Berlin) in April 2010, was inspired by these developments and the under- standing that the study of the built environment is a multi-disciplinary endeavour. The workshop, therefore, aimed to bring together specialists in archaeology, social theory, architecture and urban planning, who sought to investigate social and cultural aspects of prehistoric and historical spaces using a variety of formal analytical approaches. In the call for papers special weight was laid on the concepts of human experience and movement in built environments and their social implications, while contributions discussing more recent computer-based methodologies were particularly encouraged. Furthermore, par- ticipants were asked to consider a number of general themes associated with the theory and practice of spatial analysis applications in archaeology: the ways in which these approaches can facilitate a better understanding of human engagement and socialisation in prehistoric and historical spaces; the potential of methodologies developed for the investigation of contemporary environments to be successfully applied in archaeological datasets; the research directions that are likely to prove more fruitful and the limitations of these approaches. A third of the scheduled conference time was dedicated to open dis- cussion focusing on these and other issues raised during the conference, while a signifi- cant part of the second day of the workshop was allotted for “show and tell” demonstra- tions of software and analytical methods. The Berlin meeting proved a successful and stimulating international event with par- ticipants from fifteen academic institutions representing a variety of interdisciplinary back- grounds, mainly in archaeology, social theory, urban planning and computer science. The current volume, which is a product of this meeting, comprises chapters corresponding to selected papers presented at the workshop, as well as three relevant contributions that were INTRODUCTION 1 solicited following the conception of this book. Spatial analysis in archaeology has a long history, and while many earlier edited volumes include works that examine social aspects of built space using analytical approaches (Samson 1990; Pearson and Richards 1994; Brani- gan 2002; Robertson et al. 2006; Owen and Preston 2009; Trebsche et al. 2010; Laurence and Newsome 2011, to name a few), the present collection