There's no place like landscape: A GIS analysis of prehistoric site locations in the Alvord region of the northern Great Basin

Past archaeological research regarding the period from ca. 11,500 BP to 6,500 BP in the Great Basin has focused on paleoecological models to explain the location of archaeological sites. My study examines site location parameters for prehistoric hunter/gatherers in the northwestern Great Basin using a Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses of known sites. The basic theoretical framework for the study is a cognitive processual landscape choice model derived from Renfrew and Zubrow (1994), Renfrew and Bahn (1991). The goal is to exam which options, from a wide range of available options, were chosen prehistorically, and to develop a set of site location parameters. These parameters, not wholly optimal or rational from an economic perspective, are examined in relation to how people perceived their landscape as more than a simple economic fabric. The study will have implications for hunter/gatherer studies by providing new ways of looking at how people perceived their landscape.