This study aimed to clarify, through locational factors, the background behind the emergence of settlement size and occupation patterns in Bronze Age Geomdan-ri Type settlements in the Hyeongsan River basin. To this end, 2,024 dwellings investigated a...
This study aimed to clarify, through locational factors, the background behind the emergence of settlement size and occupation patterns in Bronze Age Geomdan-ri Type settlements in the Hyeongsan River basin. To this end, 2,024 dwellings investigated at 134 settlement sites where the Geomdan-ri type is identified were analyzed by defining “unit settlements” as the basic analytical unit. Unit settlements were delineated by visualizing the global distribution of dwelling clusters through kernel density estimation and overlaying a cost-distance analysis that used slope as the cost surface to reflect topographic constraints. As a result, a total of 36 unit settlements were identified in the Hyeongsan River basin. Based on the number of dwellings, they were classified into one large settlement (209–399
dwellings), seven medium-sized settlements (58–208 dwellings), and twenty-eight small settlements (6–57 dwellings). Next, occupation patterns were examined by arranging the sequence into three phases (Phases I–III; from the latter half of the Bronze Age to the latter half of the Bronze Age). The results show that medium-sized and larger settlements were generally occupied continuously over long periods, whereas small settlements display a coexistence of long-term continuity and short-term, discontinuous occupation.
Locational factors were analyzed by dividing them into topographic, economic, and social components. Topographic factors were assessed using landform categories and distance to third-order-or-higher streams. Over half of all dwellings were distributed on valley-floor and hill landforms, and all settlements were located largely within about 1.5 km of such streams. This indicates that a stable basis for sedentary life and access to water functioned as fundamental conditions for settlement establishment. Economic factors were examined by calculating, within a 1 km radius of each settlement, the area proportions of Grade 1–2 soil suitability for paddy and dry-field cultivation to compare agricultural production potential. Medium-sized settlements secured the most favorable agricultural production environments, whereas the large settlement exhibited a lower-than-average proportion of Grade 1–2 land within the surrounding 1 km, suggesting that large-scale growth cannot be explained solely by local productive capacity.
Social factors were investigated by constructing an inter-settlement network that combined a GIS-based least-cost path network with Thiessen polygons. Degree and closeness centrality were then calculated in UCINET, and areas of high centrality density were visualized through kernel density estimation to evaluate spatial advantage. The results indicate that, with the exception of a few cases, medium-sized and larger settlements were persistently distributed across periods within medium-to-high density zones characterized by high degree and closeness centrality. In particular,
the large settlement occupied the center of the