Settlement Archaeology in a Fjordland Archipelago: Network Analysis, Social Practice and the Built Environment of Western Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada since 2,000 BP

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In this case study from Vancouver Island, the p-median model in a Location-Allocation analysis is applied to a network formed by transportation linkages between 238 habitation zones. It is shown that the more central places are also larger sites, but this pattern only occurs at a spatial scale difficult to reconcile with deliberate optimising behaviour. It is therefore concluded that this descriptive spatial geometry is irreconcilable with any plausible underlying generative social geometry based on either normative cultural rules or deliberate optimisation. Recognition that the built environment is an interrupted process rather than a planned, finished product, allows one to avoid ascribing to the inhabitants a totalised decision-set for site location and intensity of use based on the location-allocation solution sets. Instead, it is argued that the observed spatial patterning is better seen as the signature of long-term, wide-scale, practical activity of individuals within a landscape of habit.