Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

Emeritus Professor Ray Rivers

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Physics

Distinguished Research Fellow
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7830r.rivers Website

 
 
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Location

 

509Huxley BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Evans:2014,
author = {Evans, TS and Rivers, RJ and Rivers, RJ and Evans, TS},
journal = {Les Nouvelles de l'archéologie},
pages = {21--27},
title = {New approaches to Archaic Greek Settlement Structure},
url = {http://www.editions-msh.fr/livre/?GCOI=27351100644400&fa=details},
volume = {135},
year = {2014}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Recent developments in network theory have led to the creation of new Spatial Interaction Models (SIMs) and a reappraisal of existing models. Although not directed at the archaeology community, these models generalise the familiar gravitational models and Proximal Point Analysis (PPA) used by archaeologists for many years to help explain the archaeological record. However, a problem arises in archaeology that, with the increasing suite of plausible models that now exist, it is unclear how to choose one model over another. This can lead to the criticism that, if we hunt hard enough, we may be doing no more than finding a model which can be manipulated to conform to our preconceptions. In recent articles we have begun to address this criticism (Evans 2014, in press) with particular reference to the maritime networks of the MBA Aegean (Rivers 2014, in press). Different historical periods require different approaches and in this paper we continue this analysis by re-examining the onset of centralisation in mainland Greek city states of the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. Pioneering work on this archaic settlement structure was performed in 1987 by Rihll and Wilson (Rihll & Wilson 1987, 2: 5-32; 1991: 59-95), adapting a 'retail' model devised originally for urban planning. One alternative approach is given by a recent cost-benefit model termed ariadne, developed by ourselves (Evans, Knappett & Rivers 2009, 7: 451-79; Knappett, Evans & Rivers 2008, 82: 1009-84; 2011, 85: 1008-23),  initially designed for Bronze Age maritime networks. A comparison of these models and other simpler SIMs for archaic settlements highlights the problems of modelling archaeological data. In particular we examine what constitutes model 'robustness' and the way in which different models handle 'contingency' when handling periods of rapid change.
AU  - Evans,TS
AU  - Rivers,RJ
AU  - Rivers,RJ
AU  - Evans,TS
EP  - 27
PY  - 2014///
SN  - 0242-7702
SP  - 21
TI  - New approaches to Archaic Greek Settlement Structure
T2  - Les Nouvelles de l'archéologie
UR  - http://www.editions-msh.fr/livre/?GCOI=27351100644400&fa=details
VL  - 135
ER  -
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