Giacomo Landeschi

Rethinking GIS, three-dimensionality and space perception in archaeology

ABSTRACT For over 30 years GIS has been a major theme in archaeology, leading scholars to debate the way geo-spatial platforms can contribute to a better understanding of the ancient landscape and a more thorough interpretation of the archaeological record. Recently, the introduction of more advanced software and hardware solutions have made it possible to use GIS for visualizing and analysing even geometrically complex 3D contents, in a totally unprecedented way. Still, a theoretical debate on the way three-dimensionality could impact GIS-based research has yet to come and only a few pioneering projects have been conducted to show the potential for the discipline. Among the possible lines of enquiry to be developed in this direction, sensory archaeology seems to be one to benefit more from such an approach. Starting from a review of the current state of research this contribution will attempt to show some important results recently obtained in order to generate some insights on theoretical and methodological issues raised by the use of state-of-the-art 3D GIS and to trace new paths for the future.

Re-enacting the sequence: combined digital methods to study a prehistoric cave

This contribution seeks to demonstrate how recently developed 3D GIS platforms can help archeologists in relating to the original context legacy data that can be employed to digitally reconstruct the sequence of arbitrary layers as it was observed and then excavated in the end of the nineteenth century. This research has been conducted on the prehistoric cave of Stora Förvar, located on the small island of Stora Karlsö, in South-Eastern Sweden. As a part of a research project titled “The pioneer settlements of Gotland,” this line of enquiry has sought to combine 3D-based digital acquisition techniques, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and old archival material (hand-made drawings, artifacts lists, historical pictures) in order to virtually reconstruct the original sequence as it was excavated through the method of arbitrary layers. At a later stage, the reconstructed sequence has been employed to re-contextualize and analyze the distribution of artifacts so as to detect any possible pattern that could have been useful for defining the chronological boundaries of the Mesolithic phase of habitation of the cave. In brief, three main objectives can be defined: (a) to re-create a spatial connection between the artifacts retrieved at the time of the excavation and the sequence of layers, (b) to define density maps showing the relationship between volumes of layers and categories of artifacts belonging to the sequence, and (c) to further our knowledge about the Mesolithic habitation of the cave, not only vertically (chronologically) but also horizontally.