ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the detection, characterization, and modeling of microenvironments used in the present and the past. I suggest that this approach can be used to augment artifact-based descriptions and typologies of places and to approach artifact-less locales. The methods presented in this chapter are focused on strengthening inductive arguments about site functions and building tools for chronological interpretations from context. I also privilege a locale-focused, small-scale, descriptive approach to particular places. The region of Baga Gazaryn Chuluu, Dundgovi Aimag, Mongolia, provides the testing area and archaeological data for this chapter. A range of factors derived from ethnographic models, pastoral ecology, and historical archaeology are converted into simple suitability rasters that compare and highlight advantages of particular small areas and provide starting points for models and analysis of archaeological survey data.
