Seeing is not believing: unresolved issues in archaeological visibility analysis

Description/Abstract

This paper reflects on some of the currently unresolved issues in the formal analysis of visibility and intervisibility in archaeology. It reviews the history and disciplinary context of the analysis of visibility, explains why it is such an important theme in archaeological explanation, reviews recent GIS-based approaches, and identifies some of the unresolved methodological problems with these types of analysis. It is argued that, although recent approaches are valuable and interesting, existing applications have not adequately addressed issues such as viewer-target distance effects, direction of view and temporal changes (such as seasonal or diurnal cycles).