Like all scientific fields of research, archaeology is technology dependent. As tools and technology advances, so does the field. Archaeologists use a myriad of tools in order to complete their tasks. From shovels and trowels to total station and GPS, an archaeologist is only as effective as the tools in which he or she employs. Each tool has its purpose, and its subsequent value to the archaeologists is often dependent upon that purpose. Yet there is one piece of technology that proves to be superior to all the others an archaeologist may use, a geographical information system. A geographical information system, or GIS, is a mixture of hardware and software that allows data to be stored, visualized, or otherwise manipulated in ways that help
While price and a dependency on accurate data are among those limitations, they are not the most significant. The biggest liability in using GIS not actually the software itself, but rather the user. Using GIS effectively requires specialized training, but even with training a user can still make mistakes. There are countless functions that can be used in GIS, and if a GIS function is used that is unsuitable to properly answer the archaeologist's research questions, then the interpretations made from that function may be unreliable and produce false results. However, if used with attentiveness, these limitations do not undermine the great advantages using GIS has brought to archaeology. Now that we have explored the usefulness of using GIS in archaeology, it is time to go into a little more depth. Next we will examine some more specific uses of GIS in archaeology. Although there are many more uses of GIS to be investigated, we will focus on the following areas: management of archaeological resources, spatial data acquisition, surface models, and data and spatial
While there are many other database systems used in archaeology, the GIS database system is coming to the forefront . There is an abundance of data and information to keep track of for each archaeological site, including but not limited to maps, artefacts, features, and photographs. GIS makes managing all these items more convenient since they can all be stored, edited, viewed, or updated all in one place. It is also possible to relate different types of information (such as spatial information and descriptive information) together easily through the use of attribute tables(Conolly and Lake, 2006, p.