Abstract:

With the popularization of spatial analysis and progress of interdisciplinary study，the GIS based archaeological locational modeling has made distinctive progress．This quantitative method is constantly utilized by both international and Chinese researchers to describe ancient man-land relationship and analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of settlement pattern．Some promising results have been achieved．By summarizing recent works and beginning with the application history of GIS in archaeology，current research status of GIS based locational modeling in Chinese environmental archaeology study is described according to different research topics． At the end，by summarizing the difficulties experienced by western archaeologists during the application of GIS，existing problems deserving attention and research prospect for domestic work are further discussed．This work can be used as a reference for environmentalist and archaeologist who are interested in archaeological locational modeling．

Key words: GIS, locational modeling, environmental archaeology, site catchment analysis, site visibility analysis