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Looking at Neolithic Sites Vinca and Catalhoyuk Through Time

In my paper, I will consider possibilities for analyzing physical changes that occur on archaeological sites through time. In addressing this issue, my goal would be to focus on human-landscape interaction and changes in perception that occurs during the process of gathering information.

The data sets that I will rely on are the ones treating Neolithic sites, namely Catalhoyuk in Turkey and Vinca in Serbia. These two sites, besides both being tell-sites, have a long history of research through the 20th century. Both sites have witnessed different interpretations from different researchers through time and continue to be differently perceived as they are still being excavated – almost representing endless sources of data.

I will discuss the immense archaeological potential of GIS-based approaches in landscape studies that delve into deep past. Landscape archaeology has been greatly transformed through the rapid development and widespread employment of GIS applications, and it is often stated that Geographical Information Systems profoundly influenced the way archaeologists manage and manipulate spatial information. Although definitive dates in prehistoric archaeology are somewhat scarce, temporal GIS and Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) could offer new and valuable insights into where and when do changes occur during life of an archaeological site and what types of changes these are. Furthermore, in context of the change in time and space (where time is of equal importance as space) I intend to investigate possibilities of looking at rate of change as well as periodicity of change.

Finally, I will focus on what archaeology could gain from gazing at time sequences, as well as at changes from the original state. This, in my opinion, is particularly important when analyzing tell-sites (mounds made by successive building and destructing of dwelling structures one on top of another) and even more important for tell-sites situated near rivers and prone to riverine erosion.

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