Toward Cross-Scale, Multimodal Data Applications: An Exploratory Framework of Movement Model in “Sea-Channel-Island”

Abstract. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been widely employed to model human activities, yet their application to prehistoric maritime migration—exemplified by the Austronesian expansion from coastal Asia to Pacific Islands—remains underdeveloped. This migration shaped a distinctive seascape, and analyzing it across the land-sea boundary is critical to understanding prehistoric cultural dissemination from terrestrial to maritime contexts. However, a dedicated methodology to resolve this spatial-temporal challenge is lacking. This paper proposes an integrated framework synthesizing multi-source terrestrial/marine, spatial/textual, natural/cultural, and historical/contemporary data. Three hierarchical models are formulated through GIS least-cost analysis. The maritime-scale model reconstructs movement corridors by calculating wind-driven pathways, with feasibility validated against shipwreck distributions. The channel-scale model identifies optimal visible and landfall islands across the critical strait. The island-scale model detects human landing sites and activity zones on islands. The research introduces a novel cross-scale trans-medium framework to analyze the dynamics of oceans, straits, and islands, substantiated by case studies and historical texts. This framework deciphers land-sea movement patterns shaped by human marine activities, revealing their spatial characteristics. Furthermore, it provides insights for archaeological investigations and enables systematic interpretation of cultural implications on a macro scale.