Morgan Case Study

In the Morgan article provides an interesting case study on how an archaeologist can use a GIS-based spatial analysis to reconstruct a prehistoric foraging radii to determine different foraging behaviors. The main idea that Morgan presents throughout the article is the concept of the foraging radius. The term foraging radius refers to the daily distance hunter gatherers travel from residential bases. Residential bases may include place where hunter gatherers sleep and places where their family and/or large social group resides to obtain food and other resources for survival. Even though information on the foraging radius is available through ethnographic data, it is still exceedingly difficult to identify a prehistoric foraging radius. Therefore, …show more content…
For example, the least cost path analysis is a GIS tool that is useful for finding an optimal route between two points through continuous space that minimizes costs. In other words, this analysis will help determine the best optimal path between a starting point and a destination depending on the parameters the user sets in the analysis. For this case study, the parameter for the least cost path analysis were based on a slope (terrain) data layer which measures the steepness of the Western Mono settlement. At the conclusion of the article, the author created a GIS map which displays the reconstructed foraging radii of the Western Mono. When examining the map, five circles were created and at the center of each circle will either be a principle camp or the center of the Western Mono settlement area. There is a 9.4km circle which represents the foraging limit. A 5km circle which represent the caching limit and three 3 km circles that represent the camp catchment limit. It is important to note that the information of the measurement of the limit circles was provided by the mean distance of the least cost path to acorn caches during the winter