Articles by Maria Pallarés

The growing use and increasing sophistication of GIS methods to manage archaeological data is not related to an increase in diversity of use. After two decades on a trial basis, we evaluate in this paper the current ability of Spanish Archaeological GIS applications to meet the expectations placed upon them, especially concerning their role in archaeological method and theory. The purpose of this paper is threefold. Firstly, we summarize the main trends in Spanish GIS-based applications over the last years using a sample of the most recent bibliography. Secondly, we critically examine and evaluate the inherent shortcomings of some existing GIS applications, and finally we review different underlying conceptions of space in GIS projects and propose how such a software can be integrated into a proper theory of social space.

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the role of Geographical Information Systems in archaeological research. Currently, some archaeologists seem largely captivated by new computing technologies believing that the sophistication of powerful software outputs will lend respectability by itself. In our opinion GIS is merely a set of techniques to visualise and manage large amounts of georeferenced data. Thus, there must be other tools to move from visualisation to explanation, which fall within the domain of Spatial Analysis. The ultimate aim of this paper is to show how we can integrate these already existing tools (geostatistics, intra-site statistical tests, digital image processing, artificial intelligence, etc.) into a GIS framework, in order to move from beautiful images to hard analysis. Finally, we criticise the lack of a theoretical background in archaeological uses of GIS technology, arguing that GIS is only a software and may benefit our research only if we use well defined archaeological problems on a well-based theory.