Least Cost Analysis of Social Landscapes

Devin A. White received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He works at Integrity Applications Incorporated and is also a research associate at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. Sarah L. Surface-Evans received her PhD from Michigan State University and is a postdoctoral fellow in archae-ology at Central Michigan University.

1. An Introduction to the Least Cost Analysis of Social Landscapes Sarah L. Surface-Evans and Devin A. White Part 1: Traditional Applications of Existing Methods 2. Using Least Cost Path Analysis to Reinterpret Late Upper Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherer Procurement Zones in Northern Spain John D. Rissetto 3. Connecting the Dots: Least Cost Analysis, Paleogeography, and the Search for Paleoindian Sites in Southern Highland Peru Kurt Rademaker, David A. Reid, and Gordon R. M. Bromley 4. Wandering the Desert: Least Cost Path Modeling for Water Transport Trails in the Jornada Mogollon Region, Fort Bliss, South-Central New Mexico Shaun M. Phillips and Phillip O. Leckman 5. A Method for Multiple Cost-Surface Evaluation of a Model of Fort Ancient Interaction Kevin C. Nolan and Robert A. Cook Part 2: Nontraditional Applications of Existing Methods 6. Walking and Watching: New Approaches to Reconstructing Cultural Landscapes through Space Syntax Analysis Erin J. Hudson 7. Social Interaction at the Maya Site of CopAn, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach to Configurational Analysis Heather Richards-Rissetto 8. Cost Catchments: A Least Cost Application for Modeling Hunter-Gatherer Land Use Sarah L. Surface-Evans Part 3: Custom Applications and Emerging Methods Modeling the Consequences of Village Site Location: Least Cost Path Modeling in a Coupled GIS and Agent-Based Model of Village Agropastoralism in Eastern Spain Isaac I. Ullah and Sean M. Bergin No Crows Made Mounds: Do Cost-Distance Calculations of Travel Time Improve Our Understanding of Southern Appalachian Polity Size? Patrick Livingood Prehistoric Trail Networks of the Western PapaguerIa: A Multifaceted Least Cost Graph Theory Analysis Devin A. White Part 4: Constructive Criticisms and Theoretical Discussions Seven Solutions for Seven Problems with Least Cost Pathways Scott Branting Realism, Reality, and Routes: Evaluating Cost-Surface and Cost-Path Algorithms John Kantner Least Cost Pathway Analysis in Archaeological Research: Approaches and Utility David G. Anderson List of Contributors Index

"Very significant. Scholarly contributions like this book will move archaeology rapidly into a new paradigm, beyond processualism and post-processualism, and into an identity of its own."-Douglas C. Comer, author of Ritual Ground: Bent's Old Fort, World Formation, and the Annexation of the Southwest