Session
CALL for PAPERS
Chairs: Benjamin DUCKE, German Archaeological Institute, Berlin, Germany
Description of the session: Since the late 1980s, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have played an exceptional role in data management, applied research and even the formation of spatial theory in a vast number of academic and professional fields, including (Physical and Human) Geography, Archaeology, Sociology and History.
Powerful and pervasive, GIS have dominated the discourse on spatial theory and methods for decades, with research areas such as visibility/perception studies (viewsheds), landscape use studies (least cost paths, territorial analysis) and space syntax evolving with and around them. Research subjects such as “landscape archaeology” would be unthinkable without GIS.
On the other hand, GIS have also set the limits of what can be done with spatial data. Fundamentally, all commonly used GIS are two-dimensional digital implementations of traditional cartographic techniques with an added database component. While 3D “extensions” for exploring and publishing data with “Z” values exist, they do not change (and sometimes even conflict with) core GIS components such as topological data structures and the 2D layer model, and thus remain limited in scope and functionality.
This calls for a critical appraisal of spatial information technology, as represented by today’s GIS. We invite contributions that address the following subject areas:
- Technical and epistemological limitations and current frontiers of GIS.
- Advances in the academic use of and related disciplines.
- The challenges of mapping old data in modern software systems.
- GIS in the field and for cultural heritage management.
- Systems and data integration between GIS and related technologies.
Novel and creative developments in software and methods for spatial data analysis.
Open source and open data infrastructures for spatial science.
Target group: This sessions addresses anyone interested in GIS and its use in Archaeology, History and related fields, with a broad view to its manifold applications in spatial analysis, (field) data management, decision support and spatial planning.
Submit your abstract via online form!