Date of Award
5-2021
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Cultural Resources Management Archaeology: M.S.
Department
Anthropology
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Mark Muñiz
Second Advisor
Robbie Mann
Third Advisor
Michael Hilton
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
predictability model, archaeology, predictive model
Abstract
This research focuses on an area deemed the Dome Analysis Area (i.e., Dome) in western South Dakota on the Black Hills National Forest. With the aid of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistics, the identification of favorable locations to analyze that may indicate where cultural resources occur will be illustrated through statistically significant associations between the presence or absence of cultural resources and specific environmental variables. The original approach proposed for this research in 2014 intended to build a model for predicting cultural site locations to facilitate land management planning activities more efficiently. In the process of formulating the model, a number of unexpected challenges were encountered that required a shift in focus to instead test for statistically significant associations between the presence or absence of cultural resources and specific environmental variables. The results of this study indicate that the sheer number of potential variables that may factor into site selection decisions can introduce substantial challenges when attempting to analyze those decisions using predictive models.
Recommended Citation
Hostad, Alison, "The Complexities of Developing Meaningful Archaeological Predictive Models: A Case Study from the Dome Analysis Area on the Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota, USA" (2021). Culminating Projects in Cultural Resource Management. 40.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/crm_etds/40
Master Dataset - Appendix C
