Geospatial Analysis in African Archaeology: Current Theories, Topics, and Methods

Abstract

The study of social space has become a central concern of African archaeology over the past three decades. Responding to critiques of the search for grand narratives (Stahl 1999), many scholars have turned their attention to more synchronic interpretations of social complexity and subjective experience in specific times and places-a move that encourages more critical analyses of socio-spatial relations within sites and across landscapes. In this way, an explicit concern with space aligns with calls for greater theory building in African archaeology (Wynne-Jones and Fleisher 2015) as we pose new questions, and revisit old ones, concerning human-environment interactions (e.g., Chami et al.

Monumental funerary landscapes of Dhar Tagant (south‐eastern Mauritania): Towards ethical satellite remote sensing in the West African Sahel

“…The interdependent relationship between the physical configuration and asymmetries in the social constitution of places is a central dimension in contemporary African archaeology (Klehm & Gokee, 2020;Wynne-Jones & Fleisher, 2015), and remote sensing can decisively contribute to this discussion through the large-scale study of settlement patterns and monumental funerary landscapes. The use of remote sensing for the study of monumental funerary landscapes in semi-arid landscapes is indeed growing in popularity, because technological advances are enabling detailed spatial analyses at unprecedented rates and scales: a recent paper details the application of computational machine learning methods automatic delineation of Khirgisuur stone burial monuments in Mongolia (Monna et al, 2020), whereas an ongoing project combining light aircraft remote sensing and fieldwork aims to document the Bronze Age and Nabatean funerary landscapes around the Al Ula wadi of northern Saudi Arabia (Smith, 2019).…”

“…In the central Sahara, the combination of WorldView 2 (with a resolution of 0.46-m panchromatic and 1.84-m multispectral at nadir) and airborne imagery using kites usefully documented the development of Garamantian early urban trading communities during the late first millennium BC and early first millennium AD around oases and their productive hinterlands, which supported intensive agricultural zones (Mattingly & Sterry, 2013). However, spaceborne remote sensing relying on VHR commercial imagery has long been associated with high acquisition costs and the technical proficiency required for the application of advanced computational methods to high-resolution commercial satellite imagery Klehm & Gokee, 2020).…”

Integrating spatial and legacy data to understand archaeological sites in their landscape. A case study from Unguja Ukuu, Zanzibar

“…In recent years, advances in the technologies and datasets available for airborne remote sensing have expanded applications of spatial data for African archaeology. Airborne remote sensing (multi‐spectral imagery, Synthetic Aperture Radar [SAR] and Light Detection and Ranging [LiDAR]) alongside survey, near‐surface geophysics, and GIS analysis are increasingly used by archaeologists across the continent (Klehm & Gokee, 2020), often in combination with ground‐based techniques (Thabeng et al, 2020). Remote sensing for the identification of settlement distribution patterns based on aerial and satellite photos is common in open (vegetation) landscapes, especially in North Africa (Biagetti et al, 2017; Parcak et al, 2017) and southern Africa (Davis & Douglass, 2020; Sadr, 2016; Thabeng et al, 2019).…”

The Use and Challenges of Spatial Data in Archaeology

“…This review addresses spatial data as a subset of digital data, whose swift advances in archaeology are documented well in reviews over the past several years (e.g., Garstki, ed. 2022;Klehm and Gokee 2020;Opitz and Herrmann 2018;Optiz and Limp 2015). As archaeologists lean toward reuse and interoperability, with ethics on their minds, how to treat spatial data is of particular importance.…”