Brasilia, Brazil, 29 March - 3 April 1999
Identifying the units of replication in human spatial
organisation
Dr Mark Lake
Institute of Archaeology
Gordon Square
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
England
tel (44) (0)171 504 7495
fax (44) (0)171 383 2572
email mark.lake@ucl.ac.uk
We often take it for granted that villages in a given region share the
same basic spatial organisation, even though it is far from clear that
we know why and, in particular, how they do. In the early days of Space
Syntax Hillier and Hanson suggested that the overall similarity of hamlet
plans in the Vaucluse region of France could be explained in terms of
the iteration of a simple spatial rule. This paper looks again at that
insight in the context of recent attempts to understand culture-change
as a Darwinian process. Specifically, it asks whether it is useful to
think of Hillier and Hanson's simple rule as a spatial replicator (the
spatio-cultural equivalent of a gene) and, if so, how replicators might
generally be identified. To this end the paper has three parts. The first
briefly explains what it means to claim that culture-change is a Darwinian
process and introduces the theoretical units on which an
evolutionary algorithm would operate. The second part asks whether such
an algorithm could effect change in spatial organisation and if so where
we should look for the spatial replicator. The final part of the paper
surveys possible methodologies for identifying spatial replicators and
proposes a method of computerised 'fractal decomposition', which may find
practical application in, for example, the interpretation of archaeological
sites from aerial photographs.
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