Testing the prehistoric settlement predictors: A performance evaluation of environmental variables in north-western Scania
Abstract: This paper goes over the process of evaluating the environmental variables, which are most likely to predict the locations of prehistoric settlements in a Scanian setting. This is accomplished by selecting variables which have shown to be successful in previous similar study areas and testing the spatial correlation between each variable and known settlement presence. This is followed by an overlay analysis in a GIS environment to test the overlapping areas between the variables. A theoretical background, which legitimise and problematise the methods used are included to put predictive modelling in context with archaeological scientific development. The results show that soil type, distance to major lakes and rivers and distance to coastline shows statistically significant positive correlations with settlement presence. This also holds true for the overlaid intersecting areas between said variables.
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