GIS for Archaeology and CRM

News Realease from Greg Yetman:

Beta Release of New Raster Datasets by CIESIN/SEDAC
May 31, 2006

The U.S. Census Grids, 2000 (currently in beta release) provide raster
data sets that include not only population and housing counts, but a
wide range of socioeconomic characteristics. Produced by CIESIN’s
Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), these gridded data
sets transform irregularly shaped census block and block group
boundaries into a regular surface—a raster grid—for faster and easier
analysis. Data sets are currently available for the year 2000; those for
1990 will be released in the near future.

See: http://beta.sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/usgrid/

Thanks to Kris Hirst, at archaeology.about.com, for pointing out a new blog (Digging Digitally Blog) sponsored by the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Digital Data Interest Group (DDIG).

The Digital Data Interest Group (DDIG) is organized to promote the preservation and sharing of archaeological data that are maintained in digital form.”

The DDIG group objectives include encouraging information and data sharing between researchers interested in sharing and preserving digital archaeological data, providing a forum for discussion of archaeological data sharing, and disseminating these data and ideas to the whole of the archaeological community.

The DDIG blog is directed by Eric C. Kansa and Sarah Whitcher Kansa of the Alexandria Archive Institute, makers of the Open Context, an on-line system for securing and sharing primary field data. Here is a brief post on Open Context, XML, and Tagging I wrote at the CAA conference in April.

The DDIG blog is a resource where DDIG members can post information on projects, news, and all things about digital data sharing. The initial posts include a great statement on politics and public access to archaeology, as well as, the announcement of BoneCommons, an Internet based forum for those interested in archaeozoology.

I look forward to reading future posts at Digging Digitally. This is a great group with objectives that I believe in whole heatedly. You might also notice that the DDIG blog creater has great taste in blog templates! Check them out…

In my work, I could be dealing with a GIS project in Maryland one minute, receive a phone call, and have to gear up for a whole new project in Indiana a moment later. I try to keep track of my data sources for each state and county, but they generally get lost in the shuffle of things. I had intended to start a site to keep track of these things, but luckily, GISPilot.com has done that for me.

GISPilot.com is a library of GIS Data links organized by nation, state, and county. The site claims over 1,300 links to data repositories from the United States to Australia with a large amount of links which are currently being added. Contact information is provided so that users can suggest data sources that may have been left out.

I took a look around some of the states that I have worked in before and the list of data centers looks pretty good. I’m sure with time the list will become even more comprehensive. Check it out…

The Open Source Software and Open Standards in Archaeology (IOSA.com, IOSA.it) represents a group of various aged researchers ,from the archaeologically oriented Gruppo Ricerche, at the International Institute of From LiguriaStudies (I.I.S.L.), From IOSA.it:

“The aim of the web site and of IOSA research team is to promote the use of open source software and open standards in archaeological computing. Any help is welcome and users are encouraged to register and contribute through discussion forums. IOSA.it is open to all who are interested in archaeology and free software (free as in freedom).”

The English language website contains a news blog, forums, events, and section of links to various sites and opensource software. The forum does not appear to be too active, but the events and news are rather current. Also, the “software directory” link section is full of interesting sites and software links organized by various research interests and fields within technological archaeology.

The IOSA website represents only a part of a large project being undertaken by the Gruppo Ricerche. Headquartered in Genoa , Italy, the Gruppo Ricerche began pursuing the IOSA project goals in 2004. These goals include:

1. a greater and better use of computers in archaeological research, also through better knowledge and consciousness;
2. the spreading of open source not just as software, but as a philosophy too, which is similar to the scientific research model, and therefore is suitable to it;
3. the education to the use of open source software, both generic software and scientific software;
4. to promote open standards that are thought for being exchanged on the web, which represents a good way for sharing and publication of research results, at lower cost than traditional methods;
5. to give students the opportunity to compare between open source software and proprietary software they use everyday, on ready-to-use computers, with generic and scientific software installed;
6. to start archaeological research projects in which open source software and philosophy are part of the original design and not afterwards applied to it;
7. to collect archaeologists who are interested in the use of free/libre open source software, through a web site that should work as a portal and discussion forum.

The IOSA.it website allows the Gruppo Ricerche an outlet to discuss thier research and the research of others, host tutorials, and educate others about the benefits of opensource software. It appears that the latter topic is one which the Gruppo Ricerche is quite passionate about. Reading some of the comments on the IOSA.it blog and their “about” page, it is evident that rights free licensing means much more than cheap software. From IOSA.it:

“When we speak about freedom, it’s not an abstract concept in our minds: it is your freedom to have the best tools that fit your needs, and modify them to have them better and better, and redistribute so everybody can take advantage of your work, just like you can do with others’ ones.
We firmly believe that a lot of advantages can come to archaeology this way, resulting in a more scientific approach, better exchange with other disciplines that are already forward on the way, easier spreading of data and results.”

Although IOSA.it is not frequently updated, the mission and ideas of the IOSA warrant a check in every now and then. Reading through the blog posts, there are some interesting topics. The “Transferring of Cultural Heritage with New Technology: Modelling Buildings with Inkscape and Blender” is a very informative tutorial.

ArcGIS and Archaeology: Practical Tutorials for the Use of ArcGIS in Archaeology is a cool site I ran across last week. Born out of the need to use GIS for research and the want to help other archaeologists who may be put into the GIS chair, this site provides background info on both GIS and ESRI ArcGIS products. Further, this site has a small collection of tutorials for some more common GIS/Archaeology applications, such as, creating contour lines, terrain modeling, and viewsheds. A nice looking site with a cool idea; I hope the author continues to add to the tutorial collection.

As a side note, I found this site with going through the large number of links at: Archaeological Research Resources. This is, courtesy of Historic Archaeological Research, has a ton of links for many aspects of archaeology, both research and field.

Another enthralling day in Fargo, ND. There was an abundance of great papers today and plenty of thoughtful discussion to match.

With my chances for a free happy hour drink slipping away, I will just quickly cover some of the highlights.

Inductive vs. Deductive Predictive Models: Battle-Royal!!!
Will inductive models really send earth spiraling to hell in a handbasket? Or are deductive models the way to true enlightenment? Well, this ever present topic was brought up today in a great symposium on Archaeological Predictive Models.

After David Ebert, not to be confused with James Ebert, discussed the “7 deadly sins of inductive modeling”, two authors followed with papers, based on opposed theories, that produced very compatible results. Scott Madry of the University of North Carolina, presented a 7 county wide predictive model based on an inductive correlative model. Following this, Thomas Whitley, of Brockington and Associates, presented a deductive based behavioral model for a 2600 square mile (did I record the right?) study area in South Carolina. For my money, this battle of the Carolina’s was the pinnacle of the CAA so far. Okay, so no one was throwing chairs, but I sure did scribble some frantic notes.

Basically, the inductive model is criticized by distilling the vast diversity of the environment and archaeology to a series of correlations. Though, the end result is a quantitative, testable, and field verifiable model which fits very well with the requests of the Department of Transportation. Alternatively, the Deductive South Carolina model establishes both environmental and behavioral adaptations which are cross-correlated into a matrix of cost-benefit surfaces. These surfaces are composed into any number of formulas of settlement/subsistence & behavioral adaptations to make testable hypothesis to be modeled. The end result of this approach is a hypothesis testing framework of formulas. This is great for explanatory research, but not great of DOT review. In this case, Whitley combined all 46 testable formulas into a single surface which was encoded with a 1-10 rating of site “possibility”; I’m not really sure what the correct term for that metric would be.

All in all, it was a great demonstration of the application of both methodologies. I truly enjoyed both sides of the theoretical coin. Certainly in the future I will ramble on a bit more about the war waged between inductive and deductive models.

Okay… I would like to include a few words here about the papers on XML and DBs I saw today, but I happened to be out a little too late with a couple of good friends, so it will have to wait. Tomorrow (actually today!) will be the last full day of papers, so it should be exciting!

The first day of the CAA 2006 conference has concluded. Before I head down to the hotel bar to… uh… “network”, I would like to share a bit about two interesting papers I saw today.

The first paper is a topic that was briefly covered in a previous post concerning the Tijl Vereenooghe’s Google maps based Flanders Archaeology Project “OpGraven”. After reviewing this project for the audience, Tijl unveiled a new project he has begun. “Erfgoed In Vlaanderen” is a Flickrmap (Flickr photo database tied to a Flash map) based project mapping and providing photos of the standing historic structures of the Flanders region. Please note that Tijl is not ready to release this site just yet, so improvements will be made. By using Flickrmap, erf-goed is able to handle a larger volume of data points as compared to Googlemaps and has the social network aspect of Flickr that will allow users to include their own photos of the mapped structures. After discussing these two projects, Tijl noted that he has had to spend very little time completing these projects with a total cost of $5. That raised the eyebrows of those not familiar with the technologies. The presentation can be found here.

The second paper of interest, centering upon the Digital Earth concept, was presented by Karl Grossner of the University of California, Sante Barbara. As a student of Michael Goodchild, Grossner’s work is centered on the creation of a true “digital earth system” base on the “Geolibrary” concept. The geolibrary concept, as evolved by Goodchild, is a georeferenced, searchable, index-able, library that is served through an interface that has the ability to open and process these data with GIS tools. Gossner uses this concept and builds upon it, by defining a “digital earth system” as geolibrary that interfaces with a virtual globe model with GIS tools to create, ultimately, a massively distributed GIS. Grossner’s paper spent time differentiating the digital earth system from today’s virtual globes (Google Earth, World Wind, etc…) Whereas contemporary virtual globes are not technically GISs and are primarily concerned with information with a location, the digital earth system will be more geared towards providing knowledge about places through distributed GIS databases, Knowledge Organization Systems (authority lists, domain ontologies, review & editing capabilities), UIs, querying, and clearing houses.

Certainly this is a lofty goal, but perhaps an idea that just needs it’s time. With developments in GE, World Wind, and the new capabilities of ArcExplorer, hopefully the buildings blocks of technology will find their place in Grossner’s schema. The technology will develop in that direction, but it will require a user movement to lead to a massively distributed GIS and a few good brains to keep the course steady. As stated by James Boxall [PDF] (2002; 12) “The real issue, in relation to the development of digital earth, is where the librarians will come from in order to help shape the geolibrary component of DE [Digital Earth].”

My synopsis here is limited, so luckily, Grossner revealed that this topic will be soon published as a journal article, but I will have to track him down to find out which.

Each of these papers was presented at symposium devoted to the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI). The ECAI “uses time and space to enhance understating and preservation of human culture.” Project such as TimeMap and the Silk Road Project are derived from the ECAI. Check them out…

Tomorrow’s agenda includes modeling pathways, 3D data capture, simulation, DBs, and GIS applications.

Here I an in Fargo, North Dakota at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology: CAA 2006 conference. Starting tomorrow, there will be 5 days of great presentations and workshops dealing with topics such as, but not limited to, 3D technologies, remote sensing, VR, and database theory as applied to archaeology and cultural heritage. I will try to cover some of the interesting topics I hear during the next few days. Hopefully this hotel internet connection will hold out long enough. Unfortunately, I am unable to upload any photos via FTP or HTTP, but I will do my best to let you know what is going on.

Stay tuned for updates!