Spatial Information in Archaeology

Abstract

In archaeology, maps have always played an important role for the primary documentation of findings from fieldwork, whether from excavation or survey. Since the advent of computerized database systems in the 1970s, archaeologists have amassed huge amounts of digital spatial information, usually stored in a geographic information system (GIS). From its beginning, archaeologists have been very eager to explore the analytical possibilities of GIS. The initial focus of GIS use in archaeology was on landscape archaeology. An important technological development in GIS over the past 20 years has been the development of shared data services. The process of data collection and management is one side of working with spatial information in GIS, but making sense of it is equally important. A major trend in software development over the past decade has been a move away from proprietary tools to free and open source software, in particular in academia.