Mapping movement in turbulent times: Waypoints towards a theoretically grounded geospatial archaeology

Abstract

In the last two decades, the mobilities turn in anthropology and archaeology has resulted in a widened scope for mobility studies. This includes a renewed interest in ontological questioning of the human condition, new methods for mapping humans and nonhumans (things, materials and ancestral beings) alike, and a wider range of scalar levels of analysis. Somewhat paradoxically, however, given this widened scope, during the same period African archaeology has undergone a main crisis, characterised by inter- and intra-disciplinary siloing and seclusion from stakeholders and policymakers. Geospatial technologies have a vast potential in contributing to solve this crisis. However, after more than a decade of promising geoarchaeological approaches seeking to harness universalist geospatial technologies into localised, context-sensitive insights, the potential remains unfulfilled, as geospatial archaeology is largely detached from other ways of doing archaeology. In this article, we evaluate the status thereof more than 10 years after a major call for alternatives and identify a continued epistemic standstill as a main cause for the siloing of geospatial archaeology from other research fields that may offer the necessary empirical, methodological and theoretical grounding. We explore ways to generate digital archives that enable not only the incorporation of existing archives from various disciplines but also critical, decolonialising evaluation of such archives, thereby offering new platforms on which to engage in mutually informing collaboration across disciplinary divides and with the wider public. Anchored in a prism case in southern Africa, we offer a set of waypoints for a theoretically grounded geospatial archaeology that promotes analysis of richly textured past movement on African soils instead of universalist and sterile still-images from above.

Introduction

Geospatial archaeology has a vast potential to contribute to developing novel Africa-centred archaeological approaches. Not only by harnessing already available technologies but also by developing new context-sensitive methods and theoretical perspectives. However, as recently observed by Sulas (2023: 802), a main challenge for geospatial archaeology in Africa is a lingering inertia in agenda setting, rather than analytical and resource constraints (see also Gokee and Klehm, 2023). This inertia seems closely tied to a lingering crisis for the wider discipline of archaeology in Africa, as identified already over a decade ago by Innocent Pikirayi as ‘the perception among its practitioners that it is just a ‘science’ of investigating the past, with no bearing on the present’ (Pikirayi, 2015: 535). Challenging the hegemony of Western modernist narratives of and about the past, which are hard to relate to postcolonial, geopolitical and neoliberal African realities, Pikirayi pointed out a future path: to engage with local communities and their material knowledge systems in ways that emancipates African societies’ complex stories of migration and settlement, thereby intertwining memory and history with specific landscapes. Consequently, in order to develop such uniquely African approaches, there is a need to take oral memory and history-making seriously into account, theoretically as well as methodologically. This underscores the necessity for adequately resourced digital archives, characterised by open access and seamless mobile technology integration. Unfortunately, at present there is still significant grounds to cover along this path, and Pikirayi’s call is no less relevant. A main reason is that archaeology in and of Africa has yet to release the potential of geospatial technologies in helping to solve the prevailing challenges of inter- and intra-disciplinary siloing and distancing from various stakeholders and policymakers. In the last decade, several promising approaches that harness universalist geospatial technologies into offering localised, context-sensitive insights have appeared. However, the potential remains unfulfilled, largely because the call for vital alternatives anchored in African epistemologies and knowledges resonates more with historical and anthropological disciplines with an overall high degree of awareness of postcolonial critique and drive towards decolonising approaches, and only to a lesser extent with geospatial sciences where universalist research ideals prevail.

In the following we ask how to best approach and tackle challenging theoretical issues in African archaeology, such as subaltern agency, cultural appropriation and colonial entanglements, with the help of geospatial technologies. We evaluate the status of the same just over a decade after Pikirayi’s crisis call and questioning of archaeological practice – and after a comprehensive status review of archaeological modelling of past farming communities in southern Africa (Fredriksen and Chirikure, 2015) by one of the current authors, published the same year. The latter evaluation identifies a continued lack of engagement with epistemic standstill as a main cause for the siloing of geospatial archaeology from other research fields that may offer empirical, methodological and theoretical grounding. Anchored in a prism case in southern Africa and primarily targeting the continued preference for large-scale template models that are not designed for the integration of contextualised experience, and therefore not capable of broadening our understanding of material culture and the multitude of ways it may be integrated in processes of societal continuity, change or innovation (Fredriksen and Chirikure, 2015: 599), we explore concrete ways to generate new digital archives that integrate and process complex, multi-source data. This enables not only the incorporation of existing archives from various neighbouring disciplines but also critical, decolonialising review of such archives, thereby offering a new platform for mutually informing collaboration across disciplinary divides and with the wider public. Arguing that geospatial approaches applied in archaeology in Africa can, as Sulas formulates it, ‘make a transformative impact by bridging its own camps and reaching beyond its trenches’ (2023: 802), we retrace the path pointed out by Pikirayi and identify a new set of waypoints towards a theoretically grounded geospatial archaeology. Informed by recent theoretical challenges to conventional modernist assumptions of mobility and arenas for transmission of cultural and material knowledges in African contexts (Ashley et al., 2016; Fredriksen and Bandama, 2016, 2021; King, 2018; Mavhunga, 2014, 2017, 2018) and to how movement has been conceptualised in archaeology more generally (Aldred, 2021), the waypoints are laid out to help and promote analyses of richly textured movements on African soils and diverse landscapes instead of only abstract, sterile still-images from above. The key waypoints are captured in a workflow model diagram. While our examples are from southern Africa, we believe the approach should resonate well beyond the subcontinent.

Background and scope

In the last two decades, digital archaeology has emerged as a significant subdiscipline, deploying an array of geospatial technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing and 3D modelling to study and interpret archaeological features and environments (Matyukira and Mhangara, 2023; Morgan, 2022). Such technologies offer a transformative potential for exploring wider geographical expanses than previously possible, while also enhancing visibility in challenging terrains and facilitating high precision archaeological mapping (Aina, 2012; Feder, 2016). The accessibility of technologies such as Google Earth (GE), GIS and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) has transformed archaeological documentation processes, enabling efficient data storage, organisation, and visualisation (Matyukira and Mhangara, 2023; Palmisano, 2013). Driven by the availability of user-friendly software with advanced spatial analysis capabilities (Bevan and Conolly, 2006), the use of GIS and remote sensing has gained widespread attention in archaeology in sub–Saharan Africa (Fleisher and Wynne-Jones, 2012; Klehm et al., 2019; Mohlehli et al., 2023; Sadr and Rodier, 2012; Sadr and Mshuqwana, 2020; Siteleki, 2022), thereby resonating with a worldwide research trend (Eve and Crema, 2014; Kim et al., 2020; Landeschi et al., 2019; Llobera, 2020; Matuszewska and Schiller, 2022; Wright et al., 2014). Moreover, artificial intelligence in the form of machine learning and deep learning algorithms is starting to have a place in archaeology (see Anichini et al., 2021; Kogou et al., 2020; Siteleki, 2026; Thabeng et al., 2023).

In archaeology, the significance of geospatial technologies and methods is most clearly seen in settlement analysis. As Bevan and Conolly (2006) pointed out two decades ago, understanding the spatial distribution of material culture requires examining dynamic cultural and environmental processes. Multi-scalar analysis is essential for interpreting archaeological and geographical patterns, by allowing navigation of questions about the complexity of the archaeological record and its ties to social processes at different scalar levels, spatially as well as temporally (Bevan and Conolly, 2006; Crema et al., 2025; Harris, 2006; Siteleki, 2024). Furthermore, the integration of GIS and statistical methods provides reproducible, quantitative settlement patterning data (Biagetti et al., 2016; Crema, 2025; Siteleki and Fredriksen, 2024). However, despite the availability of various technologies there are some limitations when working with archaeological data. For example, it remains somewhat challenging to produce realistic representations of archaeological features and landscapes and to integrate high-resolution terrain models with built environments (e.g., Llobera, 2015). The fact that such limitations still linger underscore the need for continuous methodological collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, by combining state-of-the-art digital tools with more traditional archaeological knowledge to achieve clearer representations and insights such as 3D modelling of sites and landscapes (for an early example, see Wilhelmson and Dell’Unto, 2015).

The rapidly evolving nature of digital archaeology continues to raise concerns about core issues such as ethics, access and inequality, deskilling, the potential of reproducing outdated narratives of the past that are corrosive and oppressive, the unwilling support of the negative effects of capitalist ideology for local communities, and the negative climate impact of scientific research and travels (Klehm and Gokee, 2020; Morgan, 2022; Sulas, 2023). Consequently, digital archaeology should strive for the democratisation of knowledge production and encourage a broader participation and diversification of perspectives on the past (Roosevelt et al., 2015; Taylor et al., 2018). While a considerable portion of technologically assisted practices can be laborious and routine, which may not significantly advance the discipline as a whole (Morgan, 2022), it is important to keep in mind, as Morgan and Eve (2012) pointed out already in the early 2010s, that almost every archaeologist engages in some form of digital practice, whether openly acknowledging it or not. This has led some scholars, such as Costopoulos (2016: 1), to advocate for a refocus from digital archaeology to exploring concrete ways of practicing archaeology through digital means.

At a relatively early stage, the application of geospatial technologies evolved from documenting archaeological sites and describing settlement patterns to interpreting spatial relationships and processes (Wheatley and Gillings, 2013). This shift intensified debates about the weak theoretical grounding guiding such applications, and several scholars have warned that limited engagement with theory risks producing contextless data and diminishing the interpretive value of archaeological features (Gillings et al., 1999; Huggett, 2015; Perry and Taylor, 2018; Trepal et al., 2020; Ullah et al., 2024). For example, Huggett et al. (2018: 43) question the identity and academic legitimacy of archaeological computing, highlighting concerns about its theoretical foundations and methodological relevance. Similarly, in their comprehensive review of spatial thinking in archaeology, Gary Lock and John Pouncett (2017) have argued that GIS remains under-theorised because its widespread adoption since the 1990s has been driven more by practical usefulness than by critical reflection on its underlying assumptions, leading many users to treat it as a neutral tool while unknowingly relying on inherited spatial models. Consequently, GIS tends to be used routinely and uncritically in archaeology, resulting in analyses that may be technically advanced but conceptually shallow, thereby limiting the studies’ contributions to substantial theoretical debate (Lock and Pouncett, 2017: 131–132).

Several case studies have convincingly shown how relatively standard and frequently used GIS techniques, such as overlay, buffering, and distance analysis, often embed quantitative and rather rigid views of space that end up restricting the types of questions asked, and thereby favouring certain kinds of interpretations. A characteristic trait is a rootedness in modernist assumptions about spatial proximity and a simple cost-benefit rationale, resulting in interpretational lenses that are too narrow or too shallow to capture more complex and multi-layered aspects of the human condition, everyday social life and mobility. For example, working with the Metis indigenous community in Western Canada, Supernant (2017) has shown that least–cost modelling/least cost path (LCP), when used uncritically, provide a lens that is way too narrow for the indigenous landscapes in question: a least-cost approach overstates the importance of environmental efficiency and understates indigenous ways of knowing and moving in landscapes. This kind of grounding of LCP in indigenous knowledge, historic trails, and archaeology helps to transform GIS from a reductive toolkit into a more accurate, collaborative representation of indigenous mobilities. In a similar critical vein, McCoy (2020) has reassessed the archaeological ‘site’ in the context of rapidly expanding geospatial technologies, especially in Polynesia (Islands). McCoy’s critique shows that geospatial technologies do not ‘solve’ the site problem; they merely reveal its (technologies) limits. As a result, the geospatial revolution risks scaling up an ill-fitting site concept unless archaeologists move toward landscape- and unit-of-evidence approaches that integrate indigenous knowledge, protect sensitive places, and critically address data quality, access, and power. Such concerns about the scope of geospatial archaeology resonate strongly with geographically wider-reaching and prominent initiatives like the ‘slow archaeology’ movement (e.g., Caraher, 2016), which has called for more reflective and context-aware uses of digital and GIS methods, and the concerns also resonate with recently emerging geospatial approaches in archaeology in Africa.

Geospatial approaches in archaeology in Africa

The concept of space emerges as a fundamental element in African archaeology, and this prompts our critical inquiry in the following: how can theoretical frameworks – epistemologies, ontologies and material knowledges grounded in African lived experience – be better integrated with the use of geospatial technologies?

The focus on social space in African archaeology traces back to the 1960s when researchers utilised aerial photography to examine human-environment interactions and settlement patterns (Denbow, 1979; Maggs, 1976; Mason, 1968; Seddon, 1968). These pioneering approaches, together with new applications, have shown the effectiveness and versatility of geospatial tools to reach beyond mapping human footprints on African soil to capture energy regimes and resource uses, enable predictive modelling, and unlock biocultural heritages (Gokee and Klehm, 2023; Sulas, 2023: 802). As geospatial technologies become increasingly integral to archaeological research, Klehm and Gokee (2020) argue that African archaeology is poised to leverage these innovations to revisit longstanding questions about past societies and seek methodological progress. Despite the inherent complexity, geospatial research in African archaeology is strongly advocated due to its potential to enhance outreach, collaboration, and training within African institutions and communities, and to improve the archiving and dissemination of digital data. These advancements are vital for contributing to Agenda 2063 (African Union, 2013), aimed at maximising Africa’s cultural and environmental resources.

While considerable progress has been made, there are at least two key challenges for the integration of geospatial methods into archaeology that still needs to be overcome. The first is the continued disconnectedness between archaeological research and the rapid proliferation of geospatial technologies across other scientific disciplines in Africa. Despite innovations in geospatial intelligence, exemplified by AfricaGeoPortal (ArcGIS, 2026) and Digital Earth Africa (DEAfrica Team, 2021), practitioners of archaeology and heritage studies tend to overlook such developments. This gap is starkly visible in Africa–centred geospatial forums like AfricaGIS (EIS Africa, 2025), where archaeological contributions are notably scarce. Significantly, the focus of archaeological approaches remains predominantly on reconstructing the past, while contemporary applications are often limited to documenting site destruction or urban threats, raising critical questions about the broader roles geospatial data can play in addressing current challenges. Significantly, the issue of equifinality, that different processes generate similar patterns, adds a sub-layer of challenges to the collaboration with other research fields within the social and climate sciences, by casting doubt on the reliability of correlating historical and archaeological records with environmental data (Sulas, 2023: 801).

The second key challenge is the ethical concerns regarding the management and creation of spatial data. Questions regarding the rights of local communities over archaeological data – its ownership, access, and ethical use – must be addressed. Conducting archaeology ‘from space’ risks distancing research from ground-level collaboration with local communities, necessitating transparency in data collection and processing (Klehm and Gokee, 2020). Furthermore, geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and LiDAR often framed as ‘non-invasive’ can still be ‘socially invasive’, especially where sacred or restricted places are remotely mapped and exposed (Sanger and Barnett, 2021). Hence, there is a call for detailed metadata (i.e. information about the data) and paradata (i.e. where the data come from and how they were processed) to ensure the ethical utilisation and sharing of geospatial data (Klehm, 2023: 106). In their comprehensive treatise of data ethics, Gupta and colleagues (2023) focus on bringing indigenous data governance and the CARE (collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics) principles into everyday archaeological data work. Their aim is to move archaeology away from extractive, colonial data practices toward indigenous control, benefit, and decision-making. Gupta et al. (2023: 9) show that implementing indigenous data governance in archaeology means redesigning infrastructures, policies, and everyday practices so that indigenous nations own, control, and benefit from archaeological data, with CARE as guiding frameworks.

As indicated in our introduction, the year 2015 appears pivotal in the African archaeological theory discourse. Pikirayi’s (2015: 532) arguments for theory development informed by local epistemologies finds resonance in Wynne-Jones and Fleisher's (2015) proposal for more robust theory building. Debates over the use of geospatial technologies continue to underscore the need for such robust frameworks to guide the application of advanced technologies in both African and global contexts (Klehm and Gokee, 2020; Sulas, 2023). This need is pressing given the frequent siloing and sometimes even tense relationship between technology-driven geospatial archaeology, repeatedly criticised for being atheoretical (Huggett, 2015; Morgan, 2022; Perry and Taylor, 2018; Ullah et al., 2024) on the one hand and more theory-driven postcolonial or postmodernist archaeological approaches on the other.

Having established the discourse status, we now turn to our main aim of establishing a set of key waypoints that are helpful in developing more robust engagements with theory in archaeology in Africa. The primary focus is on mobility in complex, multi-layered socio-political landscapes in southern Africa – our prism case – which we find to be a promising conceptual ground for fruitful exploration of how geospatial technologies can be better integrated with locally based epistemologies. In this attempt to renew and respond to Pikirayi’s original call, we present a reflexive digital approach designed not only to be capable of integrating multi-source data but also to invite critical participation of the local communities we engage with in our research.

Towards a grounded geospatial approach

Reviews of the theoretical discourse in archaeology in southern Africa published in the last decade or so (e.g., Fredriksen, 2015, 2024) have underscored the importance of moving beyond simplified narratives whereby scholars and their works are placed in opposing schools or camps (processual vs. postprocessual being the most common). For the period after the millennium's turn, with the impacts of the material turn and the third science revolution in archaeology, such binary narratives have simply become outdated and less relevant. This reflects a widespread unease among practicing archaeologists in subscribing to a particular theory and rather focusing on the individual cases at hand. This resonates with the emphasis on theory in archaeology as being mobile (Lucas, 2015) or adrift (Pètursdòttir and Olsen, 2018). Instead of thinking theory as application, it may just as well be seen as a practice of building, as ‘theory is not merely something to be employed, but something to be worked on in specific contexts’ (Pètursdòttir and Olsen, 2018: 102). Such an eclectic position entails a focus on the dynamic interaction between theory and the material it seeks to explain, necessitating critical reflection of how our perspectives shape our interpretations of the past. Digital archaeology may thereby be located within a framework of practice-based research (Morgan, 2022: 215), defined as a ‘principled approach to research by means of practice in which the research and the practice operate as interdependent and complementary processes leading to new and original forms of knowledge’ (Candy et al., 2021a: 2). This approach highlights how the process of analytical creation itself facilitates the transformation of ideas, focusing on the development of ‘artefacts’ or objects and the dissemination of this newly acquired knowledge to a wider audience (Candy et al., 2021b: 29–30).

Such a theoretically grounded use of geospatial technology needs to continually consider the role of reflexivity, contextuality, interactivity, and multivocality in archaeological interpretation. Objects and sites have complicated relationships that move across contexts, assemblages, and temporalities, changing their configuration and ‘allies’ in the process (Aldred, 2021: 8–9; Harman, 2007). To allow diverse voices and perspectives to contribute to a broader understanding will enhance the interpretative process by integrating technology and theory within the archaeological narrative (Pètursdòttir and Olsen, 2018: 102–103). Needless to say, the integration of theoretical frameworks within geospatial technologies is essential for fostering robust archaeological inquiry, as the absence of theoretical reflection may result in data that is context–less, prone to misunderstanding, and misinterpretation (Huggett, 2015). Since the millennium's turn, several calls have been made for explicitly theoretical models to guide the use of geospatial technologies, while warning against the pitfalls of not doing that (Davis and Douglass, 2020; Wilhelmson and Dell’Unto, 2015; Wheatley, 2000). For instance, predictive modelling ¹ has been widely used to identify archaeological features and deposits, but such efforts risk being atheoretical without embracing models from fields like ethnography and human behavioural ecology (Davis and Douglass, 2020). By fostering reflexive and critically engaged practices that integrate theory and method, geospatial technologies should be used not merely to record data but to engage in interpretive processes attentive to both purpose and practice, such as the various approaches developed under the banner of ‘slow archaeology’ (e.g., Caraher, 2016).

Centring in on our prism case, the archaeology of farming communities in southern Africa in the last two millennia, a previous status review demonstrated how multi-scalar analyses informed by theory provide nuanced insights into settlement patterns and social processes (Fredriksen and Chirikure, 2015), thereby underscoring that geospatial technologies alone cannot ensure comprehensive understanding without providing a balanced interplay between methodological sophistication and theoretical depth. Ultimately, the integration of theory with geospatial technologies fosters a reflexive archaeology that is conscious of the complexities and nuances of human history. It is this careful integration and interplay between theory and geospatial technologies we explore here, in an effort to respond to and renew Pikirayi’s (2015: 532, 537) original call, seeking to ensure that African archaeology remains relevant not only to scholars but also to the wider contemporary society.

Two prism case examples from southern Africa

Two recent studies of past farming communities in southern Africa engage with geospatial technologies and local communities in manners that help us ground our waypoints for future studies in concrete empirical examples. The first is by Pikirayi and colleagues (2022) who have, in the wake of the crisis call referred to above, developed a novel community-engaged archaeological approach. Developed to enhance understanding of the archaeological record associated with the later phases of the Zimbabwe Culture in northwestern Zimbabwe, this ‘archaeology of listening’ (see also Kehoe and Schmidt, 2017; Schmidt and Kehoe, 2019), emphasises the significance of engaging with individuals who reside near archaeological sites, or descend from those historically connected to such sites. Resonating with Billy Foghlú's (2017: 32) argument that understanding past societies requires engaging with present-day communities who maintain deep connections to the landscapes under investigation, the work by Pikirayi and colleagues highlights the limitations of conventional archaeological methodologies by acknowledging that the lived experiences and cultural practices of local communities differ from those of external researchers. Through sustained listening, archaeologists can develop participatory and community-centred interpretations that move beyond the constraints of Western Enlightenment-based scientific paradigms. As this form of listening provides archaeologists with perspectives rooted in the lived experiences of those who interact with the landscapes and their traditions on a daily basis, research questions and methodologies may be continually refined to ensure culturally relevant and contextually informed interpretations. This particular approach was implemented through active collaboration with local communities at every stage of the research process, from initial planning and surveys to site mapping, excavation, and the interpretation of their findings.

Interestingly, the narratives documented by Pikirayi et al. (2022) suggest that political power in the region was not fixed in a single location but rather mobile. Ethnohistorical and oral traditions indicate that the occupation of the landscape was driven by patterns of migration and movement, contributing to the clustering of monumental stone residences over time. This perspective provides valuable insights into the processes underlying settlement clustering and spatial organisation, and the findings underscore that meaningful engagement with local communities is not merely an exercise in decolonising archaeological methodologies but an enriching process that facilitates co-production of knowledge.

Secondly, in another recent study, the current authors (Siteleki and Fredriksen, 2024) integrate geospatial technologies with ethnography to elucidate socio-economic dynamics within past societies. This research delves into the complexities surrounding social inequality and environmental challenges faced by pre-colonial farming communities in the interior of South Africa, using advanced geospatial methods to map and analyse settlement patterns. By employing GIS, the study visualises and interprets the spatial distribution of settlements and resources, offering insights into how these communities organised their landscapes and navigated environmental pressures. Importantly, GIS here functions not only as a tool for spatial analysis but is also intertwined with theoretical considerations of socio-economic factors and cultural resilience in the face of environmental uncertainty. The theoretical framework draws on historical ecology and political theory, questioning traditional narratives of resource allocation and social stratification. Informed by the rich record of ethnohistorical and oral accounts and material knowledge systems reflected in the archaeological record, this perspective challenges assumptions about inequality by proposing that insecurity played an equally important role in the organisation of these communities. Additionally, the integration of remote sensing data allows for a detailed assessment of land use changes and environmental impacts over time. The approach reveals patterns of adaptation and resilience, highlighting how communities adjusted their strategies in response to shifting environmental conditions.

This case study underscores the importance of a multidisciplinary approach that combines geospatial technologies with robust theoretical inquiry informed by the rich ethnohistorical archives of African knowledge systems. The approach provides theoretical depth to geospatial analyses, ensuring that interpretations go beyond superficial spatial data to address underlying socio-political dynamics. In this manner, geospatial technologies serve not just as analytical tools but as bridges that link various disciplinary insights, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of past human-environment interactions. Moreover, this kind of integration of theory and geospatial technologies not only helps illuminate aspects of the African past but may also offer perspectives that are pertinent to discussions of inequality, resource distribution and the impacts of environmental change in the present and the future. In other words, insights drawn from geospatial studies of pre-colonial or historical contexts can indeed inform current policy and socio-environmental strategies.

Overcoming key challenges in African archaeology

In order to return to our main question of how to approach challenging theoretical issues in African archaeology, and to provide a set of guiding remarks on how to overcome the current challenges to the integration of geospatial technologies into a fruitful theoretical landscape of collaborative, community-engaged archaeological approaches, the following two sub-sections provide an overview of development in the archaeological discourse in the last decade we find to be of particular relevance for such future theory development in archaeology, and thereby to provide key waypoints in our concluding workflow model.

African mobilities

Calls for rethinking of the concept of mobility in Africa (e.g., Ashley et al., 2016) have foregrounded more recent developments in the wider discourse on mobility in archaeology, pointing out that the discipline has taken movement for granted, leaving the concept curiously under-theorised and under-developed (e.g., Aldred, 2021) in significant ways. Influenced by developments in human geography and sociology, mobility is increasingly viewed as a compilation of physical movement, representations and practices that have histories and geographies which can be traced in the broadest sense (Cresswell, 2010: 18–19). It is not seen as responsive or reactive to crises, but rather as a proactive process that forms part of society (Burmeister, 2000: 547). This effectively counters a lingering idea rooted in colonialism: to continually emphasise the mobility and influence of outsiders as a key factor responsible for sociopolitical change in African pasts (Ashley et al., 2016: 420) has helped to construct and perpetuate historical narratives that underpins state power (Borck, 2018: 230; Chirikure et al., 2013) and to entrench ideas of African societies and polities as static and not innovative without the influence of outsiders (Ashley et al., 2016: 422). Such narratives fail to recognise that mobility was already an integral part of African ways of life when colonial intrusions began (Haour, 2013; Kopytoff and Miers, 1977).

In the last decade of archaeological research in Africa, it has become evident that mobility is shaped by a range of context–specific factors that must be identified and analysed in each case. In African contexts, mobility was fundamental to gaining political power (Antonites and Ashley, 2016) since having some authority over people (as a source of labour and reproduction, for example) was the main access to power (Kopytoff and Miers, 1977). Moreover, people were an invaluable resource because of the knowledge − about agriculture, ecology, technology and ritual practices (Guyer and Belinga, 1995: 118) − they possessed. This also means that people (children, wives, clients and slaves) were acquired through material expenses as a way of amassing power. The gathering and controlling of people allowed for movement (Ashley et al., 2016: 424) in the vast lands of African polities where frontier dynamics come into play, hence interactions were not static but changed over time (Sulas and Pikirayi, 2020). This critical rethinking has resulted in a plethora of new studies of African mobilities, sharing a common anchoring in Kopytoff’s (1987) internal African frontier dynamics, where new polities have continually formed in-between existing ones. This is a form of resistance (Herbst, 2000) that may be referred to as ‘voting with one’s feet’ (Ashley et al., 2016: 424) where mobility is seen as encompassing multi-layered movements (e.g., Klehm, 2017: 620). Works by a wide range of Africanist researchers in anthropology (Kopytoff, 1987) and archaeology (Ashley et al., 2016; Calabrese, 2007; Chirikure, 2020a, 2020b; Ogundiran, 2009; Pikirayi et al., 2022; Reid and Segobye, 2000; Schoeman, 2006) have been instrumental in shaping our current understanding of the mobilities of a wide range of human and nonhuman actors in the lifeways (economic, social and political) of pre-colonial African polities.

Significantly, the above-mentioned dynamics related to movement, growth and the formation of polities have implications for how we think about pre-colonial African cities (Chirikure, 2020a, 2020b) and require alternative ways of thinking about settlement organisation. A pertinent example is Federica Sulas’ and Innocent Pikirayi’s (2020: 70) reconsideration of ‘peripheral sites’ located nearby the capital centres of two widely separate pre-modern empires in sub-Saharan Africa: Aksum in Ethiopia and Great Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe. Applying a textured landscape approach, Sulas and Pikirayi (2020: 80) underscore the intricate, relational, and interdependent characteristics shaped by human and ecological processes within an urban settlement. In contrast to traditional core-periphery modelling, this reconsideration of settlement organisation underscores interdependencies between urban dwelling areas and surrounding landscapes. Such townscapes are complex, shaped by both human activity (e.g. settlement, trade, governance) and ecological factors (e.g. water sources, agricultural potential). Importantly, this study is an excellent example of how a view of settlement patterns and mobilities through a critical lens results in a sophisticated analysis of fluid, relational spaces where movement, economic exchanges and environmental factors shaped how settlements functioned and changed over time.

Reflexivity and scale

Two key challenges to successful applications of geospatial technologies in archaeology are the issues of reflexivity and scale. Firstly, reflexivity is defined as a process of profound and critical thinking, encompassing the reflection on fundamental concepts and the employment of digital tools and methods in the context of the analysis of historical settlements (Fleisher and Wynne-Jones, 2010; Stahl, 2004). Thus, reflexivity requires archaeologists to critically examine how our uses of digital tools influence the narratives we construct and involves recognising and addressing potential biases introduced by technological mediation. This, in turn, requires continual critical reflection of not only the data but also of the methodologies used, and may involve iterative testing and validation of models against empirical evidence, ensuring that analyses remain grounded in the respective archaeological contexts (Caraher, 2016).

Secondly, the choice of scalar level of analysis – whether to focus primarily at micro-, meso- or macro-level – requires a thorough consideration of which social and environmental processes are most important to target, as different processes operate at different scales (Harris, 2006), and they may intersect in ways that require attention to more than one scalar level. The choice of scale may dramatically alter our interpretations of spatial patterns. For example, what appears as a dispersed pattern at one scale may appear clustered at another (Bevan and Conolly, 2006; Rodrigues, 2015), and researchers should consider employing technologies that allow the integration of data across multiple scales, thereby enabling more holistic analyses (Zhang et al., 2014). This may involve adapting tools and techniques to facilitate cross-scale comparisons and ensuring data consistency across different levels of analysis (Palmisano, 2013). Significantly, Crema and colleagues (2025: 2) have recently provided a formal toolkit for measuring and decomposing archaeological inequality across nested spatial scales, clarifying how scale choices shape both empirical Gini values and theoretical claims about wealth differentiation in the past (see also Siteleki and Fredriksen 2024). Hence, the successful use of geospatial technologies in archaeology must involve critically reflection of how digital tools shape interpretations – reflexivity – and carefully selecting and integrating multiple scales of analysis, as both factors fundamentally influence the patterns observed and the conclusions drawn.

A workflow model

In order to cultivate a fertile ground for archaeological theory that brings into play and integrates geospatial technologies and community engagement, there is a need for digital archaeology to transcend existing structural inequalities. For example, as pointed out by Morgan (2022), this necessitates a shift away from constructing superficial 3D models of castles and temples to instead emphasise the labour and contributions of the individuals who originally built such structures. Ensuring that digital tools are employed within a socio-politically and theoretically informed context fosters reflexive practice and enhances the accuracy and reliability of spatial interpretations (Davis and Douglass, 2020). As digital technologies continue to evolve, maintaining adaptable approaches that are able to incorporate new digital tools and archives is crucial. Such archives do not only preserve data but also facilitate access to a broader range of information that can enrich archaeological interpretation. This adaptability must be underpinned by theoretical rigor, context-sensitivity and reflexivity to ensure that the advancements serve to complement, rather than overshadow, traditional archaeological methods (Eve and Crema, 2014: 271; Lock and Pouncett, 2017).

Geospatial technologies, when deeply and carefully embedded in context, are able to capture or facilitate the exploration of fundamentally spatial questions in African archaeology about key aspects such as landscapes, locales of interaction and movement. While geospatial technologies lack the capacity to inherently ‘listen’, they can facilitate the process of active listening to and collaborating with local communities, particularly when they are contextualised through the participation of local and archaeology experts in co-production of knowledge. Significantly, participatory GIS (PGIS) has emerged as a novel addition to archaeological fieldwork approaches, offering a means to integrate local (spatial) knowledges and expertise and thereby to involve respective communities in archaeological research and heritage management (Larrain and McCall, 2018). By enriching archaeological studies with indigenous perspectives as well as those coming from the scientific community, PGIS approaches have the potential to help democratise the process of data collection and interpretation, (Dunn, 2007). The approach we argue for here allows for the contextualisation of the rather universalist digital tools with the use of methodological approaches such as PGIS, thereby enabling collaborative heritage mapping, reconstruction of past landscapes, community-driven archaeology, and restoration of indigenous material knowledges. This highly practical approach is underpinned by the theoretical framework predicated on the concept of ground-truthing, which involves the practical evaluation and validation of universalist tools within the context of archaeological research, with the aim of ensuring the relevance of these tools to be equally distributed between practitioners of archaeology and the local communities with whom we collaborate with.

Our approach may be visualised as a workflow model diagram (Figure 1). Rather than the conventional scientific departure point of researchers, this workflow model starts with local epistemologies, thus underscoring the significance of this particular anchoring of the process. This exerts a significant influence on the ensuing theoretical reflection, which, in turn, establishes a comprehensive framework for the collection of multi-source data among and with local communities. This way, the gathered data not only contribute to the research process but also feeds into local epistemologies, creating a feedback loop that ensures local perspectives are continuously integrated. Engagement and collaboration serve as a pivotal node, facilitating interaction among stakeholders and producing geospatial technologies. Framed in this manner, the technologies enhance themselves and contribute to co-production of knowledges that are archived in easily accessible digital repositories, which may engage with local communities and inform the wider public. The public then notifies the relevant policymakers, thereby completing the primary flow. Importantly, this workflow ensures that the generated archives do not comprise socially invasive knowledge and data. However, at the same time, the diagram also incorporates additional feedback loops, such as those originating from policymakers and reconnecting with local epistemologies, as implied by the cyclical nature described, thereby ensuring the process remains dynamic and responsive.

Figure 1.

Workflow model with key waypoints towards a theoretically grounded geospatial archaeology. By M. Siteleki.

As indicated above, a key waypoint in future grounding of geospatial technology in African epistemologies is the employment of reflexivity paired with an increased sensitivity to scale. Reflexivity in digital archaeology entails an awareness of how geospatial technologies influence our narratives, interpretations and understanding of space and place. Building on this, spatial data must be interpreted within the historical, cultural, and environmental nuances of the societies studied, ensuring that digital outputs reflect genuine social complexities (Llobera, 2015). A significant component of reflexivity and contextuality is the use of multi-scalar analyses and multi-source data. By examining settlements and landscapes at multiple scales, researchers can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of spatial heterogeneity and its role in cultural development (Bevan and Conolly, 2006; Fredriksen and Chirikure, 2015; Rodrigues, 2015). Furthermore, an interdisciplinary approach involving collaboration with adjacent fields such as geography, geology, ecology and anthropology enriches archaeological interpretations and enhances the analytical capabilities of geospatial tools (Fredriksen and Chirikure, 2015). Integrating socio-political theories into geospatial analyses helps elucidate the dynamics of power, inequality and resource distribution in past societies. By employing frameworks like historical ecology and political economy, researchers can better understand socio-economic factors that have influenced settlement patterns and land use (Davis and Douglass, 2020), while at the same time ensuring that their geospatial analyses contribute to broader discussions of human behaviour and societal organisation. Importantly, our workflow model does not merely suggest more technically advanced uses of geospatial technologies, but rather that we are socially and technically reflexive when using such technologies, as we question and understand our selected approach and interpret and re-interpret our findings in the process of knowledge co-production.

Concluding remarks

In the last decade we have seen a rapid progression of geospatial analysis, from rather descriptive fixed-scalar mapping to more reflexive and multi-scalar frameworks that seek to capture the dynamic and multi-faceted interactions of past societies. Importantly, while the employment of geospatial technologies presents a transformative potential, this also demands that we move beyond still and sterile images. Robust theoretical grounding along the lines described above and visualised on our workflow model may help to avoid producing abstract, context-less data that make little or no sense to the communities living in or near the sites and landscapes we study. This means that the potential benefits of reflexive and context-sensitive studies extend beyond the academic discourse and become necessary and vital alternatives to outmoded historical narratives. By recognising mobilities (in plural) as a fundamental aspect of African lifeways we refute lingering colonial narratives of stagnation and pave the way for exploring socio–political structures grounded in everyday material practices. The principle of reflexivity within geospatial archaeology underscore the necessity of participatory research that actively engages local communities, enabling cooperation and co-production of knowledge. Despite the various challenges discussed here, such as the risk of equifinality and potential disconnectedness between technological advancements and traditional archaeological methods, geospatial technologies offer valuable waypoints towards nuanced interpretations. By enabling synergies between theoretical insights and technological capabilities, Africanist archaeology can offer richer, contextually informed reconstructions of the past that not only contribute to scholarly pursuits but also resonate with contemporary societal challenges. By allowing locally based epistemologies to guide the application of geospatial technologies we can help create new digital archives that contribute to advancing African archaeology in ways that increase its relevance, both within and beyond the continent.