Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:29:42.514Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geographical Information Systems

Methodological progress and theoretical decline?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Milco Wansleeben  and
Leo Verhart
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is one o clock in the morning of December 20. Buffalo is cold, five degrees below zero Fahrenheit with a wind chill of minus twenty five degrees. The Niagara River is frozen solid except at the Falls. Sounds travel far on these cold nights. I hear a loud crash as if the ice is beginning to crack. I fantasize about the spring and the ice breaking up into thousands of small icebergs that float down the river. Icebergs bring to mind GIS software. Like icebergs, GIS software is frequently attractive and even starkly beautiful. Yet GIS systems are sometimes foreign and can be very inhospitable. As in the case of those frozen fantasies, GIS software may look better from a distance than close up. (Zubrow 1990b, 184)

Type
Discussion Article 3
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , May 1997 , pp. 53 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W., 1990: Interpreting space, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 383–386.Google Scholar
Bakels, C.C., 1978: Four linearbandkeramik settlements and their environment: a paleoecological study of Sittard, Elsloo and Hienheim, Leiden (Analecta praehistorica Leidensia 11).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, J.C., 1994: Fragments of antiquity. An archaeology of social life in Britain 2900-1200 BC, Oxford.Google Scholar
Blake, V., Harrison, A., Shell, C. and Stoddart, S., 1995: ARCH-GIS. A Multi-media tutorial for the use of GIS in Archaeology, Bristol, Cambridge and Glasgow.Google Scholar
Boekschoten, G.R., and Stapert, D., 1996: A new tool for spatial analysis. Rings and sectors plus density analysis of trace lines', in Kamermans, H. and Fennema, K. (eds), Interfacing the past, computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology CAA 1995, Leiden (Analecta praehistoria Leidensia 28), 241–250.Google Scholar
Brinkkemper, O., 1993: Wetland farming in the area to the south of the Meuse estuary during the Iron Age and Roman period, Leiden (Ph D. thesis University of Leiden).Google Scholar
Burrough, P.A., 1985: Principles of geographical information systems for land resource assessment, Oxford.Google Scholar
Chapman, R., 1981: The emergence of formal disposal areas and the ‘problem’ of megalithic tombs in prehistoric Europe, in Chapman, R., Kinnes, I. and Randsborg, K. (eds), The archaeology of death, Cambridge, 71–81.Google Scholar
Farley, J.A., Limp, W.F. and Lockhert, J., 1990: The archaeologists's workbench. Integrating GIS, remote sensing, EDA and database management, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S. W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 141–164.Google Scholar
Gaffney, V., and van Leusen, P.M., 1995: Postscript – GIS, environmental determinism and archaeology: a parallel text, in Lock, G and Stancic, Z (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 367–382.Google Scholar
Gaffney, V., and Z, Stancic, 1991: GIS approaches to regional archaeology analysis: a case study of the island of Hvar, Ljubljana.Google Scholar
Gaffney, V., Stancic, Z. and Watson, H, 1995: The impact of GIS on archaeology: a personal perspective, in Lock, G and Stancic, Z (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 211–229.Google Scholar
Harris, T.M., and Lock, G.R., 1990: The diffusion of a new technology: a perspective on the adaptation of geographic information systems within UK archaeology, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 33–53.Google Scholar
Harris, T.M., and Lock, G.R., 1995: Toward an evaluation of GIS in European archaeology: the past, present and future of theory and applications, in Lock, G. and Stancic, Z. (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 349–365.Google Scholar
Hartmann, J.L.H., 1988: Interpreting earth measurements by image enhancement techniques, in Rahtz, S.P.Q. (ed.), Computer and quantitative methods in archaeology, Oxford (British archaeological reports – international series 446, 1), 223–247.Google Scholar
Higgs, E.S., and Vita-Finzi, C., 1972: Prehistoric economies. A territorial approach, in Higgs, E.S. (ed.), Papers in economic prehistory, Cambridge, 27–36.Google Scholar
Kvamme, K.L., 1990: The fundamental principles and practice of predictive archaeological modelling, in Voorrips, A. (ed.), Mathematics and information science in archaeology. A flexible framework, Bonn (Studies in modern archaeology 3), 257–295.Google Scholar
Kvamme, K.L., 1995: A view from across the water: the North American experience in archaeological GIS, in Lock, G. and Stancic, Z. (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 1–14.Google Scholar
Kvamme, K.L., and Jochim, M.A., 1989: The environmental basis of mesolithic settlement, in Bonsall, C. (ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe, Edinburgh, 1–12.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K., 1985 (ed.): Archaeological formation processes. The representativity of archaeological remains from Danish prehistory, København.Google Scholar
Laflin, S., and Perry, N., 1992: A PC-based program to display surface data, in Lock, G. and Moffett, J. (eds), Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1991, Oxford (British archaeological reports, international series 577), 205–211.Google Scholar
Leusen, P.M. van, 1993: Cartographic modelling in a cell-based GIS, in Andresen, J., Madsen, T. and Scollar, I. (eds), Computing the past, computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1992, Aarhus, 105–123.Google Scholar
Leusen, P.M. van, 1995: GIS and archaeological resource management: a European agenda, in Lock, G. and Stancic, Z. (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 27–41.Google Scholar
Lock, G.R., 1995: Archaeological computing, archaeological theory and moves towards contextualism, in Huggett, J. and Ryan, N. (eds), Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1994, Oxford (British archaeological reports, international series 600), 13–18.Google Scholar
Lock, G.R., and Harris, T.M., forthcoming: Danebury revisited: an English iron age hillfort in a digital landscape, in Aldendorfer, M. and Maschner, H. (eds), The anthropology of human behaviour through geographic information and analysis, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lock, G., and Stancic, Z., (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London.Google Scholar
Marble, D.F., 1990: The potential methodological impact of geographic information systems on the social sciences, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 9–21.Google Scholar
Neustupny, E., 1995: Beyond GIS, in Lock, G. and Stancic, Z. (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 133–139.Google Scholar
Potter, T.W., 1979: The Changing Landscape of South Etruria, London.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1976: Megaliths, territories and populations, in Laet, S.J. de (ed.), Acculturation and continuity in Atlantic Europe, Brugge (Dissertationes archaeologicae Gandensis 16), 198–220.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., and Level, E.V., 1979: Exploring dominance. Predicting polities from centers, in Renfrew, C. and Cooke, K.L. (eds), Transformations, mathematical approaches to culture change, New York, 145–168.Google Scholar
Roorda, I.M., and Wiemer, R., 1992: Towards a new archaeological information system in the Netherlands, in Lock, G. and Moffett, J. (eds), Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1991, Oxford (British archaeological reports, international series 577), 85–88.Google Scholar
Savage, S.H., 1990: Modelling the Late Archaic social landscape, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 330–355.Google Scholar
Stoddart, S., Belcher, M. and Harrison, A., 1996: L'applicazione del GIS all Etruria Meridionale. The South Etruria survey: why apply GIS ?, in Bietti, A., Cazzella, A., Johnson, I. and Voorrips, A. (eds), Theoretical and methodological problems. Colloquium II. The present state of GIS applications and analogous systems in prehistoric archaelogy. Preprints of the XIII Congress of the UISPP, Forli, Italy, Forli, 185–192.Google Scholar
Tilley, C., 1994: A phenomenology of landscape. Places, paths and monuments. Oxford.Google Scholar
Wansleeben, M., 1988: Application of geographical information systems in archaeological research, in Rahtz, S.P.Q. (ed.), Computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1988, Oxford (British archaeological reports, international series 446 (ii)), 435–451.Google Scholar
Wansleeben, M., and Verhart, L.B.M., 1990: Meuse Valley project. The transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in the Dutch Meuse Valley, in Vermeersch, P.M. and van Peer, P. (eds), Contributions to the Mesolithic in Europe, Leuven, 389–402.Google Scholar
Wansleeben, M., and Verhart, L.B.M., 1995: GIS on different spatial levels and the Neolithization process in the south-eastern Netherlands, in Lock, G. and Stancic, Z. (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 153–169.Google Scholar
Warren, R.E., 1990: Predictive modelling in archaeology: a primer, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 90–111.Google Scholar
Wheatley, D., 1993: Going over old ground. GIS, archaeological theory and the act of perception, in Andresen, J., Madsen, T. and Scollar, I. (eds), Computing the past, computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology 1992, Aarhus, 133–138.Google Scholar
Wheatley, D., 1995: Cumulative viewshed analysis: a GIS-based method for investigating intervisibility, and its archaeological application, Lock, G. and Stancic, Z. (eds), Archaeology and geographical information systems. A European perspective, London, 171–185.Google Scholar
Williams, I, Limp, W.F. and Briuer, F.L., 1990: Using geographic information systems and exploratory data analysis for archaeological site classification and analysis, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 239–273.Google Scholar
Zubrow, E.B.W., 1990a: Contemplating space: a commentary on theory, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 67–72.Google Scholar
Zubrow, E.B.W., 1990b: The fantasies of GIS software, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 184–193.Google Scholar
Zubrow, E.B.W., 1990c: Modelling and prediction with Geographic information systems. A demographic example from prehistoric and historic New York, in Allen, K.M.S., Green, S.W. and Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds), Interpreting space. GIS and archaeology, London, 307–318.Google Scholar