Articles by Alessandra Nardini

The paper focuses on the problems related to archaeological excavation data management through the use of a GIS solution; it considers aspects ranging from the planning of an open and functional data model, fitting the complexity of stratigraphy, to the possibilities of data processing such as the production of thematic maps or the elaboration of interpretative and predictive models using statistical and mathematical tools. It also discusses the difficulty of 3D data recording, as well as the recent technological development of Internet mapping servers and web-based dynamic GIS systems.

This paper concerns the specific experience of our Laboratory in managing archaeological excavations on a GIS platform; the development process of our solution started five years ago and brought us, through successive stages of refinement, to an efficient data model. The basic idea was to reproduce on a graphic level the exact situation we find in the field. We therefore organised our objects according to an overall composite plan representing all the excavated layers, as well as the necessary landscape features, related only in spatial terms; detailed alphanumerical data and interpreted information were derived from the DBMS using specific identifiers. The objects were organised in views according to different parameters and queries; examples of views we created involved the surrounding landscape (e.g. with archaeological surveys, land cover and use, geology, etc.), preliminary investigations (with analytical surveys and crop-marks detection), and stratigraphical data (with a composite plan of all layers as well as analytical views based on chronological aspects, excavated structures, etc.).