Biweekly Colloquium: Landscape affordances - methodological approaches in computational archaeology (Michael Kempf)
Apr 12, 2021 from 04:15 PM to 05:45 PM
virtual
CRC 1266/ROOTS Biweekly Colloquium:
"Landscape affordances - methodological approaches in computational archaeology" (Michael Kempf, Masaryk University)
Abstract:
Functional landscape connectivity and spatial distribution of resource patches have long been considered important driving factors of human-environment interactions. In this context, human activity spheres, movement patterns, and situational decision-making represent the spatio-temporal expression of how individuals and groups perceive and transform their immediate surroundings in the process of landscape construction. This process is based on various environmental and cognitive variables such as group memory or individual demands and perceptions – a combination of different empirically, theoretically, and methodologically derived concepts, which are not often included jointly in archaeological and geographical research. A potential approach to overcome these limitations is the concept of landscape affordances, which entails dynamic and processual feedbacks of an individual or a group and the environment in the moment of mutual interaction and integrates human ingenuity in the production of landscapes, ecological processes, and sociocultural patterns. Deriving from psychology research of the late 1970’s by James J. Gibson, affordances describe the phenomena of propositions emanating from objects within a specific environment. Consequently, landscape affordances are non-static, actual, and potential confrontations between observer and particular resources or functions distributed among the accessible realm of the observer. In this lecture, the conceptual framework of landscape affordances is used to evaluate its potential in computational landscape archaeology and geography through the integration of different temporal scales and time-series analyses.
For more information and the videoconference link, please contact the CRC1266 at office@sfb1266.uni-kiel.de or the ROOTS office at office@roots.uni-kiel.de
Download abstract here
