The earliest Holocene occupation of Orkney is still poorly understood. This pilot study explores the use of multi-factorial landscape and land-cover reconstruction to form a baseline physical environment for the assessment of Mesolithic movement and potential site suitability. A geographic information systems (GIS) approach to landscape reconstruction through proxy use allows for an analogue of Mesolithic land cover and extent to be generated and used to predict the potential for Mesolithic site/material remains. The integration of agent-based modelling introduces a novel investigation of pathways in the landscape, divined not with a fixed destination but with a programmed least-cost movement behaviour to extrude “natural corridors” of movement from the study area. Utilising the base physical characteristics of the natural environment, without introducing complex sociopolitical or economic drivers for movement promotes the use of a complex physical environment as a necessary consideration as baseline for all studies of mobility and movement. This approach also intends to present a platform to develop more universal or widely applicable models capable of providing a relevant baseline landscape for the rapid assessment and investigation of the archaeological potential of an area. Developing or understanding the role of a robust landscape permits the appropriate assessment of project utility, scale, and layering and integration of more complex input factors.

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.