GIS in archaeology – an example of prospection and documentation of archaeological and industrial heritage

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present an overview of possible implementation of GIS in archaeology, on the example of selected geoinformatic tools used for detection and documentation of archaeological and industrial heritage. This paper presents selected elements of the existing geoinformatic system that allowed to discover and document charcoal piles in the vicinity of Seredzice in Mazovia, within the project “The implementation of laser scanning and remote sensing in protection, research and cataloguing of cultural heritage. Developing non—invasive digital methods of surveying and documenting architectonical and archaeological heritage” (Research project supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the “National Program for the Advancement of Humanities”). Another goal of this text is to give a schematic overview of the procedure, developed on the basis of literature and previously carried out research, used in the above mentioned project to recognize heritage objects.
The paper consists of four main parts: introduction, presentation of the use of GIS in archaeology, presentation of chosen aspects of the currently constructed geoinformatic system, analyses and results of research and conclusion.
The text presents a geoinformatic system constructed for the purpose of conducting a scientific research program, one of the possible sources of data – aerial prospective scanning, and three methods of analysis that allow to detect heritage objects: 1) hill-shading (shaded relief), including hill-shading from multiple directions and 2) principal component analysis (PCA) and 3) local relief model (LRM).
This text is an overview of a scientific method that includes elements of a geoinformatic system. Heritage objects discovered with its use were positively verified during field prospection.