The Project

The present proposal is based on the assumption that a landscape conveys significance as a result of cultural and spatial elements. Thus, it can be unfolded when its multi-trajectory dynamics putted in place by natural and social factors, are properly understood both horizontally, i.e. spatially, and vertically, i.e. over time. This approach will bring thus a new perspective in the following research objectives, using digital technologies (GIS and computational probabilistic statistics) and up-to-date social sciences:

• RO1. (a) How distinctive is spatial behavior in Attica in a diachronic perspective? (b) Is it possible to individuate the evolution of meaningful quantitative and qualitative patterns of regional variability in shifting settlement strategies and changing social choices?
• RO2. (a) How are territorial assets negotiated through time by the definition of cultural frontiers and regional boundaries? (b) Are regional identity affiliations connected with the parallel formation of smaller – identity boosting – physical units such as urban centers, sanctuaries, villages and so on, as hierarchically and heterarchically interacting factors of socially meaningful entities?
• RO3. (a) How can the subsequent social/economic stratifications be discerned in their spatial frame? (b) Which are the spatial prerequisites of specific political institutions and the identity strategies of self- and group-representation embedded both in material investment (for example in cult structures and burial rituals) and literary/epigraphic discourses?