Abstract:
Author presents a critical survey
of the development and present state of spatial analyses in
archaeology. He traces the root of spatial analysis to
Tonnies' distinction between naturally defined spatial relationships and
socially defined spatial conventions. He discusses its
subsequent development through the Austro-German anthropogeographers,
and its fissioning into a variety of spatial
theories adapted two different social sciences. He provides
an excellent tour d'horizon of these different theories and
their archaeological applications, as well as attempting to
define the directions in which these theories are likely to
develop. Perhaps the most significant direction is toward a 'structural archaeology,' where the
physical expressions of a culture may be viewed as elements
in a system amenable to structuraL analysis.