Dawson 2002

Space syntax analysis of Central Inuit snow houses Peter C. Dawson Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr., NW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 Received 12 November 2001; revision received 29 April 2002; accepted 11 June 2002... More

Space syntax analysis of Central Inuit snow houses Peter C. Dawson Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr., NW Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4 Received 12 November 2001; revision received 29 April 2002; accepted 11 June 2002 Abstract Space syntax is a graph-based theory used by architects to examine how the spatial layout of buildings and cities influences the economic, social, and environmental outcomes of human movement and social interaction. Archaeologists have explored this concept by analyzing how social structure is reflected in the spatial configuration of public and domestic architecture. In this paper, space syntax is used to examine the spatial morphology of snow houses built by three Central Inuit groups in the Canadian Arctic, based on ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts. The results of this study demonstrate that variation in family structure and the behavioral directives present in Inuit kinship systems are reflected in the spatial configura Less