The application of geographic information systems to archaeology : with case studies from neolithic Wessex
Year: 1994
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Geographic Information Systems (CIS) - computer systems for the manipulation and storage of spatial data - have commanded substantial attention in recent archaeological literature. Applications of GIS have been extensively discussed within some archaeological contexts in the United States and yet, although the interpretation of regional sequences of archaeological change still relies heavily on the distribution map, and on supposed spatial relationships deduced from these, GIS have made little impact on archaeological research in Britain. This thesis contends that the slow uptake of GIS within British archaeology is a result of the unthinking importation of analytical methods which are sometimes inappropriate to British archaeology or to archaeological study generally. It is held that the application of GIS within British archaeology requires that analytical methods be devised in response to specific archaeological problems rather than, as at present, archaeological problems sought to fit the available methods. The thesis begins by reviewing the historical development of GIS, and the application of GIS to archaeology to date. It then describes two case studies which explore in detail the potential applications of GIS to the Neolithic archaeology of the Wessex chaUclands, firstly through the analysis of earlier Neolithic monument locations of the Avebury and Stonehenge areas, and secondly, through the analysis of systematic survey data from the Stonehenge area. In the process of exploring these sequences of change, new methods are devised to approach the specific questions which arise from this material. These case studies result in some new methodological tools for archaeological regional analysis, notably the definition of a methodology for substantiating claims for intervisibility among archaeological monuments, and some recommendations concerning the portability of predictive models. The thesis also presents some specific archaeological conclusions, particularly that the causewayed enclosure sites of the study areas cannot now be regarded as 'central places'; that long barrow monuments around Stonehenge may have been deliberately situated for intervisibility; and that the densities of flint in the immediate area of Stonehenge are related to distance from the ceremonial monuments of the area.
Author: Wheatley, D
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6989457140