Articles by Robert E. Witcher

This paper discusses the results of an inductive predictive modelling experiment on Roman settlement data from the middle Tiber valley, Italy. The study forms part of the British School at Rome’s Tiber Valley Project, which since its inception in 1997 has been assessing the changing landscapes of the Tiber Valley from protohistory through to the medieval period. The aim of this present study is to broaden understanding of settlement patterns via predictive modelling, and in particular to evaluate unevenness in field survey coverage, survey bias and past settlement location preferences. The predictive modelling method chosen was an application of the statistical Weights of Evidence extension for ESRI ArcView. The results highlight associations between Roman settlement and environmental themes that provide moderate predictive potential and suggest that further experimentation might prove valuable.

Information Technology is at the heart of the Tiber Valley Project, from the integration, storage and analysis of data, through project management to the visualization and dissemination of results. Here, some of the ongoing applications of this technology, both implicit and explicit, have been presented. Detailed results will be published as the project continues, with a synthetic volume currently in preparation (PATTERSON et al. in preparation).