The development of a spatial explicit agent-based modelling framework to explore past vegetation dynamics
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The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
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University of Bradford
Department
School of Archaeological and Forensic Science. Faculty of Life Sciences
Awarded
2022
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Abstract
The ways in which humans interacted with and subsequently altered their environments in the past has always been an important consideration when it comes to archaeological interpretation. Unfortunately, the temporal resolution of data we do have rarely allows us insight into how environmental change would have been perceived at the human scale. The early and mid-Holocene saw dramatic changes climatically and culturally in North-West Europe, with the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition perhaps the most important of them all, manifesting in the shift from hunting and gathering to farming practices. Debate still surrounds causality of these changes, but the archaeological record presents definitive changes in woodland composition and structure at this time. However, the data we are often presented with span centuries and millennium, offering only static snapshots in time. Considering this, new ways of applying what data we do have through the integration of methods from other disciplines are still needed to fully explore such past phenomena.
This thesis describes the development and implementation of a spatially explicit agent-based modelling suite integrating individual tree dynamics and human interaction from prehistory. Adopting approaches used for contemporary woodlands, primarily forest succession models, these are applied to prehistoric landscapes with change determined by human management, climate change and landscape features. Key concepts of computer modelling and their effects on both the implementation and interpretation of the produced results provides the foundation for rationalising such an approach, weighing both the pros and cons.
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Thesis
Qualification name
PhD