Locating archaeological sites in the landscape: a hierarchical approach based on landscape indicators (original) (raw)
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GIS as a tool for processing hybrid prospection data in landscape archaeology
International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 2007
(i3mainz) have been examining the area of the Celtic oppidum Hunnenring in the northern Saarland in Germany since the end of 2006. The monumental northern wall of this prehistoric town is preserved up to a height of 10 m, which makes it the largest fortification-structure in the Celtic world. Various sources indicate that the low mountain range, which is nowadays positioned peripherally, used to be a significant centre of supraregional importance in Celtic times. By using various archaeological prospection methods and the approaches of applied geoinformatics and surveying technology it is attempted to reconstruct the pre-and protohistoric habitat in as detailed a way as possible. Special emphasis is placed on tracking the early use of resources and on the question to what extent local iron ore and copper deposits affected the economic activities of people. High-resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTM), which were generated by using Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) data, are a core component and starting point for targeted prospections in this study. The information that was generated by using various methods such as geophysical prospection, surveying of single finds, ALS and excavations, is stored and related to each other in a Geographic Information System (GIS) and is, combined with significant factors such as soil quality, geology, water logging, slope and water proximity, to be included in analysis of settlement history. Reconstructing the pre-and protohistoric habitat with its network of human settlements, sacred places, its cultivation and field areas and its natural resources is referred to as landscape archaeology. Archaeological research commonly is
2012
This thesis presents a brief overview of quantitative spatial analysis in archaeology with a discussion of the theoretical and methodological issues involved, and describes a set of methods for using Geographic Information System (GIS) software and spatial statistics for the assessment of archaeological resources. GIS has become a nearly ubiquitous and indispensable tool in many fields of resource management including archaeology. It is, however, applied by archaeologists most frequently for basic cartographic representations, large-scale regional analyses, or resource management data warehousing. Such applications underutilize the scale-independence of GIS, which is equally potent for intra-project data assessment. This thesis describes a set of GIS, geographical, and geostatistical techniques for the initial assessment of survey data in the identification and delineation of site boundaries, intra-site spatial analysis of cultural material to facilitate the assessment of site integrity, and expedient visualizations of these data through spatial correlation overlays.
Natural and cultural heritage management is dependent on knowledge about present species and habitats and presence of cultural heritage sites, respectively. Knowledge about long-term development helps to identify factors explaining both biodiversity and cultural heritage and to predict future changes based on changes in, for example, climate or grazing regimes. In the present interdisciplinary study, vegetation surveys, pollen analysis from a bog and soil profiles within archaeological localities, archaeological test-excavations and historical data have been combined to elucidate cultural landscape development in an upland landscape of Erdalen in Stryn, western Norway. Activity in what is now the summer farm area started in the Bronze Age, followed by clearance and grazing in the Early Iron Age. After a period of reduced activity, most of the valley seems to have been utilised for summer farming in the Late Iron Age and first part of the Medieval Period. A regression period, probably related to the Black Death, is followed by new activity with extensive woodland clearings from the seventeenth century, whereas recent changes have resulted in increased tree cover. The investigations show a close relationship between land-use practices, presence of grassland species and vascular plant species richness. They also show the importance of continued management for existence of semi-natural habitats in the future, and for the visibility of archaeological sites. Keywords: archaeology; cultural landscape development; long-term ecology; habitat conservation; palaeoecology; summer farming
Erwin Meylemans, Jean Poesen & Ingrid In 't Ven (eds.): The Archaeology of Erosion, the Erosion of Archaeology Proceedings of the Brussels Conference, April 28-30, 2008 (Relicta Monografieën 9 Archeologie, Monumenten- en Landschapsonderzoek in Vlaanderen; Heritage Research in Flanders), 2014
Buried, hidden sites constitute the most numerous and perhaps most vulnerable type of the world’s archaeological resources. Protecting this invisible cultural wealth remains one of the great challenges of heritage management. GIS technology and powerful computational methods have dramatically improved the potential for efficient spatial management and conservation practice. With the increased availability of detailed geodata and cheap processing power, predictive mapping and erosion modelling have become practices possible with most GIS applications. Indeed, their usefulness is now defined by how well they integrate into a robust decision support toolkit allowing the combination of multiple model outputs, the generation of easily interpretable maps, and by how elegantly they handle the considerable uncertainty inherent in archaeological datasets. Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST) is a flexible mathematical framework that allows pooling of data from a variety of sources in a natural, straight-forward manner, explicitly representing uncertainty and producing a range of interesting output metrics that can be used in decision making processes. This article looks at how DST can be employed as a framework in heritage management, combining information about site location preferences and preservation conditions towards a unified assessment of archaeological value.
2011
Local topography is an important parameter determining the erection of a certain type of site on a certain location in the landscape. Despite the importance of topography in archaeological landscape research, the role of local topography has remained rather unexplored compared to other specific topographic parameters such as slope, aspect, curvature or visibility. Therefore, three methods to assess the relative topographic position of sites are applied and discussed here. The Bronze Age barrow dataset of northwest Belgium acts as the subject for this methodological case study. First, elevation percentile calculates the area that is lower than the central point within a predetermined neighborhood. Secondly, difference from mean elevation measures the relative topographic position of the central point as the difference between the elevation of this central point and the mean elevation within a predetermined neighborhood. And finally, deviation from mean elevation calculates the relative topographic position of the central point as the difference from mean elevation divided by the standard deviation of elevation, within a predetermined neighborhood. These three methods, each with their advantages and disadvantages, prove to be an added value for archaeological landscape research.
This paper approaches landscape as a concept that goes beyond lists of objects that can be found in a defi ned area of the earth’s surface. Using a list to reconstruct a landscape is shown as adding something that by its nature is not included in a list of such objects but is essential to the concept of landscape. Therefore, using a list to discuss a landscape or to assess a single site within a landscape means implicitly adding something that does not have the same sensual qualities as the entries in a list. Consequently, for an individual to speak about a landscape is to create a landscape. And, of course, each creates his or her own landscape. To make explicit the implicit element of the concept of landscape, a quantitative approach is introduced in this paper and applied to the data of the Austrian National archaeological survey.
Internet Archaeology, 2018
With the aim of providing knowledge for informed choices, a series of tools have been developed for archaeological heritage management in the Netherlands. They include maps, datasets, methods, guidelines, best practice and web-based applications to facilitate the effective and efficient selection of valuable archaeological remains. The products relate to archaeological predictive modelling, disturbances by agriculture and other activities, archaeological heritage maps, prospection methods, research questions and scientific syntheses to close the archaeological heritage management cycle.