Slide 1

How Archaeologists use GIS

What is Archaeology?

ar-chae-ol-o-gy or ar-che-ol-o-gy: 1 archaic: ancient history 2 : the scientific study of extinct peoples or of past phases of the culture of historic peoples through skeletal remains, fossils, and objects of human workmanship (as implements, artifacts, monuments, or inscriptions) found in the earth 3 : remains of the culture of a peoplear-chae-ol-o-gist or ar-che-ol-o-gist: specialist in archaeology

(abstracted from Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. G.& C. Merriam Company, Publishers. Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 1976. p. 111.)

But contrary to popular belief...

We don't do dinosaurs, or aliensWe don't go around like Lara Croft or Indiana JonesWe usually take more than 3 days over a dig

Archaeologists use GIS to tell us more about what we're digging up

Oxford Archaeological Unit

Prehistoric Roundhouses look like this when we reconstruct them

Blogdroed

but they look like this in the ground

Oxford Archaeological Unit

GIS helps us see them more clearly

Oxford Archaeological Unit

We use it to survey what we find- even in the most challenging of landscapes!

Oxford Archaeological Unit

...then we use GIS on a wider scale to show how people interacted with their landscape

Oxford Archaeological Unit

Is it significant that people used the land in this way?

Oxford Archaeological Unit

Can we use this information to help find other sites?

Oxford Archaeological Unit

In summary- we use GIS at small scale to tell us about an individual house, through to large scale, helping us to understand and manage whole landscapes

English Heritage

Thank You!

Jo CookOA Digital
http://oadigital.netj.cook@oadigital.net+44 (0)1524 880212http://oadigital.nethttp://thehumanjourney.nethttp://slideshare.com/archaeogeek

This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California
94105, USA.

Thanks again for listening, this talk is available online with notes, should you wish to replay it in the comfort of your own office.