3 Capítulo 1 Evaluación de cursos ECOSOL en el pregrado
3.2 Evaluación de estudiantes
3.3.3 Propuestas de mejoramiento para curso Solidaridad y Desarrollo
Chapter Four presents a full analysis of the routes between Gordion and other, important, contemporary sites in the region, incorporating both digital and
experiential perspectives on movement through the landscape. Here I describe the methodology I have employed, which differs somewhat from Howey’s, to produce results similar to the Circuitscape program. Two examples from the Gordion landscape, which are not included in the following chapter, will also serve to show how this method compares with those already discussed and why I prefer it for describing movement between locations.
The concept underlying Circuitscape - to think of the landscape as a field of
‘resistance’ with ‘currents’ of higher or lower resistance - is very similar to least cost path analysis derived from cost surfaces. The method’s real value is in revealing not just the easiest path, but a full spectrum of routes, each with different relative resistance scores. The same effect can be achieved in ArcGIS by adding together anisotropic cost surfaces from the locations under consideration and symbolizing the results to reveal separate paths (
Figure 28
). As before, the cost surfaces are based ontopographic slope converted into walking times with Tobler’s hiking function - putting the relative ‘resistance’ values into meaningful, human terms.
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Figure 28: Circuit between Gordion and Kara Pinar, showing two main routes with similar travel times.
The circuits between Gordion and two sites, Kara Pinar and Hasansih Pinar, identified in the intensive Gordion Regional Survey as surface ceramic scatters, will highlight the variety of route-options that this methodology allows a researcher to compare. Both examples include a number of routes with different walking times, land cover and hydrology considerations, and divergence/convergence points between them. The results are related to the built environment in an attempt to identify significant locations in the landscape.
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Kara Pinar (GRS Site #48) is a circular surface scatter roughly 500 m in diameter, making it one of the largest surface sites identified by the Gordion Regional Survey.6 Ceramic evidence dates the site to the Early Bronze Age, Middle/Late Bronze Age, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods. Circuitscape analysis reveals two main routes between Gordion and Kara Pinar (
Figure 28
). One route, thefaster one by about four minutes, follows the course of the Sülüklü Çay to the south of the Northeast Ridge, then bends northeast after passing another Iron Age site - Çekerdeksiz B (GRS Site #28) to approach Kara Pinar downhill from the south. The other route skirts the Northeast Ridge on its western side and heads more or less directly east before turning northeast to join with the first route. Both routes are flanked by large clusters of numerous tumuli, especially for the portion of the
journey closer to Gordion. The northern route is shorter in Euclidean distance - 10.5 to 11.5 km - and is also more direct, requiring less turns of a traveler. Heavy rains draining off of Duatepe to the southeast often caused flooding of the Sülüklü Çay before its channelization in the 20th century, which would have made the southern route periodically impassable. Another important consideration is the other site that lies along the southern route. Travelers would have passed by another settlement, perhaps stopping for social interaction along their journey, meaning that
relationships between communities would have been affected by route choices. Both routes were likely used during the Iron Age, but least cost path analysis would have only shown the southern route, missing the more nuanced picture of movement that Circuitscape affords us.
6 The published data from the Gordion Regional survey on site size is not specific to
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The second example (
Figure 29
) reveals similar dynamics related to movement in thispart of the landscape. Hasansih Pinar is another surface scatter (GRS Site #42) located in the uplands to the east of Gordion and roughly 150 x 500 m in size. It seems to only have been a new occupation in the Phrygian period, and then continued in use through the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Circuitscape again suggests two major paths between Gordion and the smaller, contemporary site - routes very similar to those that connected the city to Kara Pinar. The northern route for this site involves some interesting choices for the traveler. In the same amount of time, one can either skirt the western edge of the Northeast Ridge, or cross it on either side of Tumulus MM (the largest tumulus at Gordion). The northern route then heads east until veering south to rejoin the southern route, and at this turning the path is flanked by two clusters of tumuli. The placement of monuments at turning points, or where decisions must be made, is a pattern that will recur several times in the next chapter and indicates that these monuments likely functioned as landmarks. Just as in the previous example, the two routes bear an interesting relationship to another Iron Age site - Çekerdeksiz B - with one route passing right by the site, and the other bypassing it. This is another example of the possible social implications of route choices, made all the more interesting by the fact that both routes were monumentalized.
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Figure 29: Circuit between Gordion and Hasansih Pinar, showing two main routes with similar travel times.
When compared to the other methodologies discussed in this chapter, Circuitscape offers clear benefits to archaeologists studying movement between contemporary sites. The methods all return similar paths, but Circuitscape is better linked to past movement because of its focus on centers of settlement where people would have been traveling most often. Certain routes take on added significance, especially in relation to the built environment and other considerations about the past landscape, when using a method that reveals suboptimal paths. Spatial cognition and
ethnography tell us that choice in movement is a complicated process tied to knowledge of a landscape gained through experience and social interaction.
Circuitscape allows a researcher to better explore the options available to travelers and reveals very different junctions between routes than the other methods.