Further frontiers in GIS: Extending spatial analysis to textual sources in archaeology

Abstract

Although the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has a long history in archaeology, spatial technologies have been rarely used to analyse the content of textual collections. A newly developed approach termed Geographic Text Analysis (GTA) is now allowing the semi-automated exploration of large corpora incorporating a combination of Natural Language Processing techniques, Corpus Linguistics, and GIS. In this article we explain the development of GTA, propose possible uses of this methodology in the field of archaeology, and give a summary of the challenges that emerge from this type of analysis.