GIS and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology
Geographic information systems and spatial analysis let archaeologists store, map, and analyze the spatial dimension of the record, from artifact distributions within a site to settlement patterns across landscapes.
Definition
The application of geographic information systems and quantitative spatial methods to archaeological data in order to analyze the distribution, location, and relationships of sites, features, and artifacts.
Scope
This topic covers the use of GIS to manage and analyze archaeological spatial data and the broader tradition of spatial analysis. It addresses point-pattern and distributional analysis, predictive modeling of site location, viewshed and cost-surface analyses of visibility and movement, and the integration of survey, excavation, and remote-sensing data into spatial frameworks.
Core questions
- How are archaeological spatial data managed and visualized in GIS?
- How are artifact and site distributions analyzed statistically?
- How are visibility, movement, and site location modeled?
- What are the assumptions and limits of spatial and predictive models?
Key theories
- Spatial analysis of distributions
- The quantitative study of how artifacts, features, and sites are arranged in space, pioneered before GIS, to infer activities, social organization, and settlement processes.
- GIS-based landscape modeling
- The use of GIS to model terrain-dependent phenomena such as visibility (viewsheds) and movement (cost surfaces) and to build predictive models of where sites are likely to occur.
History
Quantitative spatial analysis entered archaeology in the 1970s, exemplified by Hodder and Orton's work, drawing on geography and ecology. The adoption of geographic information systems from the early 1990s integrated these methods with digital mapping, enabling viewshed, cost-surface, and predictive modeling that are now standard in landscape archaeology and heritage management.
Debates
- Environmental determinism in predictive modeling
- Predictive and landscape models often rely on environmental variables, prompting debate over whether they impose an environmental determinism that neglects social, symbolic, and historical factors in site location.
Key figures
- David Wheatley
- Mark Gillings
- James Conolly
- Ian Hodder
Related topics
Seminal works
- wheatleygillings2002
- conollylake2006
- hodderorton1976
Frequently asked questions
- What is GIS used for in archaeology?
- It is used to map and manage spatial data and to analyze it, for example modeling where sites are likely to occur, what could be seen from a place, or how people might have moved across terrain.
- What is a viewshed analysis?
- A viewshed analysis uses a terrain model to calculate which areas are visible from a given location, helping archaeologists study sightlines, monuments, and the experience of landscape.