Benjamin DUCKE
(Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany)
Geographic information systems have today gained general acceptance as the software of choice for spatial data analysis in archaeology. At the same time, awareness of the importance of open software technology has grown among professionals concerned with freely using, developing and sharing methods and data.
The software presented here is a tightly integrated suite of open source components for spatial data storage, analysis and visualization, centered around GRASS and QGIS. There already is a lot of functionality specifically geared towards archaeology (e.g. predictive modelling, territorial modelling, advanced viewshed analysis) and it seems logical to develop this further into the primary platform for archaeological data analysis.
There are many ways in which contributions can be made and this paper will outline what sort of resources can be channeled into which parts of the system for maximum gain.
Keywords: GRASS, QGIS, open source, spatial analysis