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Heuristic Approaches to Spatial Analysis in Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Keith W. Kintigh  and
Albert J. Ammerman
Keith W. Kintigh
Affiliation:
Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Albert J. Ammerman
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 13901
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Abstract

This article discusses an approach to spatial analysis which is more closely tailored to archaeological objectives and archaeological data than are more "traditional" quantitative techniques such as nearest neighbor analysis. Heuristic methods, methods which make use of the problem context and which are guided in part by intuitively derived "rules," are discussed in general and with reference to the problem of spatial analysis in archaeology. A preliminary implementation of such a method is described and applied to artificial settlement data and artifact distributions from the Magdalenian camp of Pincevent. Finally, the prospects for further development of heuristic methods are elaborated.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 31 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1982

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