Tomaž PODOBNIKAR1,3 / Christian BRIESE1 /Michael DONEUS2 /Norbert PFEIFER1
(1University of Technology, Vienna, Austria / 2University of Vienna, Austria / 3Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia)
The quality of spatial data depends on many elements and may affect subsequent processing steps strongly. We can distinguish two groups of errors: inherent (measurement) and processing error (spatial analyses and modelling). The errors can be evaluated by statistical methods or by other means. Although the inherent errors of spatial data are mainly considered to be normally distributed, their character often contains admixtures of poorly explained properties and even uncertainties. Error distributions that can be explained with stochastic rules can be modelled by Monte Carlo simulations.
Analyses and modelling of the cultural landscapes could be a high level uncertain process if we don’t understand the nature of data well, and especially if not enough metadata is available. Different kind of spatial analyses require various aspects of knowledge of the data sets and their properties. This paper provides empirical analysis of uncertainty of data that support and harmonize particular modelling operation (visibility, path modelling, catchment analysis, etc.).
Four approaches to the uncertainty analyses and modelling of cultural landscapes in environmental archaeology are exposed in the paper: analyses of the Bronze Age settlements and influence of the sea level changes on the analyses of cultural landscape; analyses of the ancient paths – communications between settlements; analyses of the visibility from the significant points; analyses of the social and economical landscape of the Bronze Age hillforts on the less hilly. The case study areas are from Croatia (Central Dalmatia), Slovenia (Dolenjska), Mexico (Yucatan, Campeche) and Austria (Lower Austria and Burgenland).
Keywords: uncertainty, digital elevation model, paths, visibility, simulations