Abstract:The Dutch Roman limes zone has a rich history of archaeological and historical research. In this paper, we present an overview of the current state of knowledge as an introduction to other chapters in this volume dealing with the area's demography, economy and transport system (Chaps. 2, 3, 7, 9 and 12). The main historical developments are sketched against the background of ongoing archaeological research in the area, and the main hypotheses concerning the development of settlement and the rural economy are d… Show more
“…In addition, the cell resolution within the 5 m data was re-gridded (with no value change) to match that of the 2 m LiDAR. This process will have introduced an additional level of abstraction, but the resulting composite DTM provides a representative picture of the modern topography and is of sufficient resolution for the generation of a cost-surface analysis (Verhagen et al, 2019). Figure 2.The Dinas Powys proto-kingdom as defined in Seaman (2013).…”
Section: Creating a Digital Terrain Modelmentioning
The (re)occupation of hillforts was a distinctive feature of post-Roman Europe in the fifth to seventh centuries ad. In western and northern Britain, hillforts are interpreted as power centres associated with militarized elites, but research has paid less attention to their landscape context, hence we know little about the factors that influenced their siting and how this facilitated elite power. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide opportunities for landscape research, but are constrained by limitations of source data and the difficulty of defining appropriate parameters for analysis. This article presents a new methodology that combines data processing and analytical functions in GIS with techniques and principles drawn from ‘traditional’ landscape archaeology. A case study, focused on Dinas Powys, suggests that the strategic siting of this hillfort facilitated control over the landscape and has wider implications for our understanding of patterns of power in post-Roman Britain.
“…In addition, the cell resolution within the 5 m data was re-gridded (with no value change) to match that of the 2 m LiDAR. This process will have introduced an additional level of abstraction, but the resulting composite DTM provides a representative picture of the modern topography and is of sufficient resolution for the generation of a cost-surface analysis (Verhagen et al, 2019). Figure 2.The Dinas Powys proto-kingdom as defined in Seaman (2013).…”
Section: Creating a Digital Terrain Modelmentioning
The (re)occupation of hillforts was a distinctive feature of post-Roman Europe in the fifth to seventh centuries ad. In western and northern Britain, hillforts are interpreted as power centres associated with militarized elites, but research has paid less attention to their landscape context, hence we know little about the factors that influenced their siting and how this facilitated elite power. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide opportunities for landscape research, but are constrained by limitations of source data and the difficulty of defining appropriate parameters for analysis. This article presents a new methodology that combines data processing and analytical functions in GIS with techniques and principles drawn from ‘traditional’ landscape archaeology. A case study, focused on Dinas Powys, suggests that the strategic siting of this hillfort facilitated control over the landscape and has wider implications for our understanding of patterns of power in post-Roman Britain.
“…Archaeologists still lack user-friendly tools for modelling spatial networks [ 38 ]. Consequently, turning the Tisza river drainage into a network with node attributes and land bridge properties required working in ArcGIS, R, and Ucinet [but see 50 for another approach to a similar problem].…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…I take the Tisza river and convert it into a network model (that is, a theory model) navigable by boat with some degree of portage over land. This differs in many respects from construction of least cost paths to model movement, which almost invariably model pedestrian travel on land [ 38 , but see 50 ]. I then measure the betweenness centrality values of different locations on the network and compare them to the percentage of burials with bronze, the number of objects per capita, and the estimated bronze weight (wt) per capita in cemeteries during the latter part of the Early Bronze Age [c. 2200–1750 BC) and the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1750–1400 BC).…”
Archaeologists use differences in metals from burial contexts to identify variation in social inequalities during the European Bronze Age. Many have argued that these social inequalities depended on access to, and control of, trade routes. In this paper, I model critical gateways in the Tisza river-a river system in the Carpathian Basin that might have enabled privileged access to metal in some areas but not others. I then evaluate the concentration of metal on different topological nodes of the river network in an attempt to understand what best explains the distribution of metals across this landscape. I do this by describing Bronze Age metal consumption and display in cemeteries from four micro-regions of the Tisza, and compare them with network 'betweenness centrality' values for locations along the river. I find support for the argument that favourably located river nodes had better access to metal in the earlier part of the Bronze Age.
“…Archaeological alternatives to 14 C-based proxies include; settlement residency estimates-for example, numbers of assemblages, densities of archaeological material, size of sites and catchments areas-whose implementation varies considerably between mobile [35,39] and sedentary societies [40]; tree-ring dating ( [41] this volume) and; historical documentation including death registers, population censuses and epigraphy [42,43]. Combining one or more of these diverse datasets with date assemblages provides useful controls on the limitations of radiocarbon summaries mentioned above [44].…”
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