Site Catchment Analysis

Site catchment analysis models a settlement's economy by delimiting the territory that its inhabitants could realistically exploit and inventorying the resources within it. Introduced by Claudio Vita-Finzi and Eric Higgs in their 1970 study of the Mount Carmel area, the method rests on the premise that the cost of moving to and from a site falls off sharply with distance, so most subsistence activity occurs within a limited radius. By drawing a catchment — classically the area within one or two hours' walk — and measuring how much of it is arable land, grazing, water, lithic sources, or wild biota, the analyst characterizes whether a site is oriented toward farming, herding, hunting, or gathering. Modern practice replaces simple circles with terrain-sensitive least-cost territories computed in a Geographical Information System, as set out by Conolly and Lake.