“Free rides” in the LBA Argive Plain, Greece: applying FOSS to investigating communication paths in archaeological research

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate the level to which Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) can be used for spatial analyses and, more specifically, Least-Cost-PathAnalysis (LCPA). To do this, ground-truthed routes which connected major Mycenaean hubs in the Argolid, such as Mycenae and Tiryns, were compared to generated least-cost-paths (LCPs) using both the FOSS platform QGIS and the proprietary software ArcGIS. There were two available options to generate LCPs in QGIS and one in ArcGIS. Different routes were produced in all three cases with the ones generated in QGIS appearing to be following the contours of the landscape and being closer to the surveyed paths. In the end the study shows that advanced spatial analyses can be conducted by employing FOSS. Additionally, thanks to their transparency and the provided tools being easy to understand, the methodologies are reliably replicable and reproducible, resulting in making the archaeological landscapes accessible to all. The research carried out for this paper falls under the SETinSTONE project, funded by an ERC consolidator grant (nbr 646667), under the direction of prof. Ann Brysbaert, and conducted at Leiden University (The Netherlands).