Discovering Architectural Patterning at a Complex Site

Abstract

To enable systematic interpretive studies of community organization and population, two techniques are advocated: (1) a probability sampling technique for the selection of at least a portion of a site's excavation units and (2) the systematic recording of architectural space. A substantive example is drawn from the investigations of a historic period town in northern Morocco, Qsar es-Seghir. Analyses of architectural remains produced information on the overall nature of land use, general layout of the community, and two alternative methods of estimating population.