The tools developed by the LIMC (databases and web site LIMC-France) give access to Graeco-Roman objects decorated with mythological or religious representations. Created in 1981, this system has constantly evolved in order to fit the needs of new fields of research, standards and practices of the Internet. Thanks to the use of standards (Dublin Core, TEI, CIDOC-CRM, WGS 84, XMP/IPTC) the databases of the LIMC are combined with other archaeological databases on the international web portal CLAROS whose Semantic Web approach and the innovative tools optimize the use of the data by the 'internaut'.

The project that gave rise to the API ARCH’IS was created in 2008. It was motivated by a discussion on optimizing the registration and use of data searches, particularly in the context of complex, diachronic and a huge variety of structures, sometimes split into several excavation sites. While the use of conventional GIS would have seemed the most appropriate, it raised the twin issues of training and the availability of licenses. In addition, it offered no probative solution for work in ‘real time’. ARCH’IS has been developed by archaeologists to meet their own needs and interests of preservation of information. Its architecture is based on a MySQL SGBDD operated through a modular application implementing various individual languages in the world of the Internet. ARCH’IS integrated an engine map with useful features for most archaeologists, without specific training needs. Experimented on several projects of Marne-la-Vallée, the development plan of this API has now been established for many years.

The large amount of documentation made available by ‘preventive’ archaeology led to the setting up of several collective research programs. Aimed at rural settlements during the Middle Ages on a regional level, both ‘région Île-de-France’ and ‘région Centre’ PCR have to deal with handling this documentation. In line with the current PhD work of the author about settlements and agrarian system during the early Middle Ages, a shared reflection on a common information system was launched. Beyond approaches aimed at evaluating archaeological potential or solely focused on inventory, here the goal is to acquire a tool dedicated to research. Moreover, if databases are used on a daily basis by the archaeologist, their use in a collective way leads to the standardization of the manner information is encoded. The aim of this paper is to present the conclusion of this shared reflection, focusing especially on settlement patterns, environmental data and the estimate of reliability of information. The technical choices which helped to minimize costs are also presented.

Archaeologists are interested in the construction of information systems and in their treatment and increasingly, in the electronic communication of tools. The examples of collective projects which have web sites exist (databases, GIS, computer generated images, etc.). In this paper we shall present the experience of the EMA program which, under the aegis of the National Agency of Research, was responsible for the creation of a database of children’s graves in Antiquity (Center Camille Jullian of Aix-en-Provence, UMR Archaeology and Science of Antiquity of Nanterre, Center of Alexandrine Studies). In association with their partners, the UMR ArScAn designed the tool in continuation of the work on the conception and the ergonomics of the bases of data and images. The EMA base now is shared; at the end of the program it will be opened for consultation, after the consent of each of the researchers involved. At the same time, we shall examine some sites of consultation of databases and the ways in which they respond.

This article illustrates a computerised database for excavation recording called Stratibase which is used by several archaeology teams in France. This is not intended to be a detailed presentation of Stratibase and its characteristics, because this sort of computerised application is at present very commonplace. However, the steps leading to the origin and development of Stratibase are presented along with some conceptual aspects; in fact, through this experience, we arrived at some general conclusions about computerised recording systems used by archaeologists. Our remarks, from an archaeological point of view, concern the need for variety and adaptability in those systems and, at the same time, the necessity for standardized fundamental principles. They also concern the role of the archaeologist in the elaboration of data models.

One of the goals of the research program ‘Archaeology of the Paris Basin’ has been to establish an Archaeological Information System, i.e., a meta-database of the archaeological sites studied in the geographic area of the program, from the Paleolithic to modern days, in order to produce thematic maps using appropriate software. This paper aims to present this meta-database, but also to consider the technical constrains and the methodological choices involved in its implementation. The development of the query interface of this database repre¬sented an opportunity to reconsider the initial geomatic approach. This application is based on Open Source technology, and is both appropriate and adapted to the objectives of the program. It proposes an original synthesis of DBMS and GIS functionalities. Its development is in line with the rereading of the discipline paradigms suggested - or imposed - by the rise of the geomatic Open Source.

Up to now Geographic Information Systems have rarely been used to study decorated caves. The research conducted for more than 12 years now in the Chauvet cave required a unifying tool that would collect, on the same support, all of the different types of information gathered from the various fields of research involved in the study of the cave. The objective was to find a system that could centralize and cross reference all of the information acquired. Besides just a filing system, this tool was also needed to promote the development of new research for a better comprehension of the cave and the way in which it was occupied. The diversity of the data to be integrated and the needs of the different disciplines required a co-constructive approach to the support and to the means for representing the data. In order to be able to cross-reference both the data collected from the soil and from the walls we decided to direct the GIS developments towards the integration of three dimensional information. The first GIS applied to caves with paintings should also be a useful reference tool for the study of other caves in the future. This article is intended to describe the different stages we passed through for the implementation of this tool, by analyzing the limitations, the choices made and the prospects we envisage.

The Pôle archéologique from Aisne Department excavated a ninth and tenth century graveyard in Mortefontaine (Aisne). Two hundred graves were excavated in a field (50 m long, and 5 m wide) and integrated in a GIS. The decision to build this last system was taken after the end of the excavation, without any specific field process, which constituted an important technical constraint. Each grave is a part of a database built in collaboration with the anthro¬pologist studying them and the archaeologist in charge of the excavation. The system makes it possible to fill the database independently from the GIS. Although the study is not yet over, we already have the first results in terms of distribution. They show the usefulness of this system to manage and understand this kind of excavation.

The main use of GIS in archaeology is connected to regional research or management of excavation data sets. The use of GIS for urban archaeological research is far less extensive. The urban GIS about the medieval town of Pisa contains all archaeological data from occasional findings to modern stratigraphic excavations, geographical data, historical cartography data and urban data, each described by the geometrical shape (point, line, polygon) that best represents each feature. The distinguishing environmental context to which the town is connected is characterized by a complex hydrographic system; GIS analysis enabled us to study the relationships between the urban transformations and the surrounding environment. The article explains how geostatistical analysis allowed us to create a model of the ancient landscape and how the use of map algebra was useful in understanding the medieval environment. The difficulty in finding raw archaeological data, that is, all the excavation and fieldwork recording (planning of context, context recording sheet, photographs, findings quantification sheet), suggested the necessity to create an open digital archive and to provide possible standardization of digital formats, metadata records and archaeological data recording, so as to allow a comparison between the data.

Since 2003 when the Archaeological Unit City of Lyon (SAVL) was appointed by the French Ministry of Culture as a preventive archaeological operator, the increase inactivity revealed the need for a standardized in field recording tool. In the meantime, the state archaeological services required the different operators to adopt an extreme degree of homogeneity in the final excavation reports, in order to improve the long term management plan of the archaeological artifacts. This double evolution drove the SAVL to adopt an operating system development from the field to the final report process built on the ‘ALyAS’ GIS (Archéologie Lyonnaise et Analyse Spatiale). This system, enhanced as an additional tool for the French institutional GIS ‘Patriarche’, proceeds, with the overall results, from the archaeological fact scale to the topographic mapping feature. To the original database core (archaeological data, referenced documents and ancient map recordings) an extension module focusing on in field recording is added. The ongoing purpose of these tools is to connect the field recording results to GIS final processing. This approach links the immediate targets of preventive archaeology (reports) to the archaeological data management involved in a long lasting territorially applied GIS system. In the near future, some extensions should also respond to the institutional request, and each time become more refined, particularly when compiling archaeological artifacts recording the final archaeological reports.

ArkeoGIS is a webGIS developed on free ware basis; its purpose is to link archaeological data from both the French and German sides of the Rhine, for the periods from the Bronze Age to the early medieval period. Though beta version is already functional, further development will integrate geographical data, new tools and layers. The point for both archaeologists and geographers is to be able to access data which may not yet be published, in order to plan new research and have fast access to hard to find available data (Universities, CNRS, culture, local archaeologists, etc.) in both the countries and languages involved. New databases produced by students working on the Rhine valley will help to develop the project.

A procedure was developed to reconstruct the sedimentary units and to establish the position of the archaeological features and was then implemented via a database coupled with a GIS. This reconstruction requires the increase of measurements taken on the ground in a homogeneous way. It is then used to supply a 3D visualization of the sedimentary units in the relationships of archaeological operation (excavation or trial trenches), even for spot observations. This tool, which is still in an experimental phase, could be extended and validated by geomorphologists to constitute a data bank which would be useful both for the archaeologist and for the geologist.

In cooperation with the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the GIS Center of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt has undertaken the creation of an archaeological map of the West Bank of Thebes in order to supply the Egyptian authorities with a tool for the management and the development of this rich archaeological area. The relevant documentation for the mapping process, because of its abundance and disparity, requires the establishment of a unified documentation system using jointly GIS and databases. Besides the production of thematic maps, this tool opens new horizons, both in terms of processing and analysis and in terms of sharing and publication of data relevant to the knowledge of the cultural heritage of Thebes.

In applying an approach of dematerialization of planimetric, written and archaeological data, that should be soon processed through a GIS, it will be necessary to estimate the errors made in the compilation of the Napoleonic land registry made in order to be able to work on the construction of the urban space. The registry was started in 1811 and as a source document for morphological analysis and regressive mapping, it is geometrically quite precise. However, a review of this fiscal document (which has a twisted perspective, perhaps to tell us something about the townscape) and a comparison to correct maps have revealed a few errors depending on the level of treatment. It therefore becomes useful to characterize and to explain them, before linking them with oldest documents and archaeological data. The example of Les Coutures will allow us to put into practice these observations in order to define methods of metrological analysis and to study dynamics of urban space occupation according to various spatial and temporal scales.

The geo-archaeological approach to the formation of urban strata has to deal with a high density and diversity of processes and deposits. The recording system used is generally very specific: pedologic registering forms, 3D geo-localization, etc. The records are difficult to quantify and to integrate into more common stratigraphic systems. Sometimes they are even considered useless or hardly understandable. The case study described here deals with micromorphological, stratigraphical and 3D organization of dark earth layers from French preventive excavations. It combines the use of a laser tachaeometer, a petrographic microscope, a spreadsheet and a GIS. The observations are analyzed by statistical and spatial methods. The results and the major difficulties are explained here. The system is focused only on a few elements that seem to be essential, because they help to read, register, analyze, interpret and communicate data.

General principles of recording data in archaeology, developed and consolidated during the past thirty years have spawned a multiplicity of conceptual models and robust software solutions. Inrap, as the main actor at the national level, must foster the harmonization of different approaches to the recording of data in order to improve methods of collecting and sharing data. The paper shows the different solutions and main tools for data capture being applied by the excavation team managers of the Institute, considering the particularities of these tools such as origin, method, type of field, and scientific questioning. Moreover, the adjustments to which these tools are being subjected in order to fit different situations are presented. The focus is on an ongoing project to establish progressive convergence among the possible approaches, including the promotion of the development of a conceptual platform shared with the Ministry of Culture, which would allow a 'branding' of various databases. The use of a standard like the CIDOC-CRM, the international standard of reference for the exchange of information on cultural heritage, could serve as a reference.

The design and progressive implementation of an Archaeological Information System (AIS) at Inrap aims to meet the needs for improving archaeological reasoning as well as regulatory requirements. The term of AIS means here a coherent and organized set of resources (people, data, methods, processes, hardware, software, etc.) to acquire, organize, store, manage, analyze, and publish relevant archaeological information from various forms and sources. The overall objective is to enable Inrap to get consistent and harmonized archaeological information of known quality and managed according to interoperability. This project utilizes several studies and real situation experiments among which those produced for GIS in collaboration with CNRS and University F. Rabelais of Tours (UMR 6173 CITERES).

When the Reims team presented the first results of its SIGRem project in 2006 our major concern was presenting the available data collection and supporting documents regarding the archeological excavations conducted in the last 20 years in the City of Reims. The integration of GIS into the daily university context required a process directed resource to make a simple tool allowing the specialization of searches available to researchers and students. The geogates provide an easily accessible working space and the fact that some gates have free access means that they are used by an increasing number of people, thus augmenting their potential value. After exploring professional solutions, we now wish to provide a simple and easily accessible technology. To reach this goal, we have attempted to find and develop suitable processes and tools. Our process is founded on a double approach. The student/researcher, using common office automation and web tools, will be able to collect and locate data of interest. The laboratory will use more complex resources to provide more detailed analysis and formatting. Results will then be restated and shared on a geogate allowing private or public access to the search data.

The purpose of the project led at the present time by the sub-direction of archaeology (Ministère de la Culture) is to organize the data transmission under IT format from one actor to another in the archaeological process of artifact management and documentation. This would mean that the diverse actors involved - regional services of the archaeology, department of the underwater and submarine archaeological researches, operators, administrators of preservation and studies centers, excavation warehouses, or museums agents responsible for archaeological collections - would not be obliged to collect this information again on their own computer systems, during the relay passage between actors.

This study deals with the impact of the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) on the French institutions for archaeological research. The practices of GIS follow a global evolution. With the dematerialization of the data and the systems, we are actually in a process which proposes new modes of data management and new working processes. On the occasion of a PhD research at the University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre, we conducted an examination of projects drawn from various contexts of French archaeology: archaeological services of regions with a measure of autonomy, national institute of preventive archaeological research (Inrap), Ministry of Cultural Heritage, University and institutes of research. It gave us the opportunity to analyze the peculiarities and durability of the practices connected to GIS. This double initiative shows us the relevance of questioning the format techniques and the methods by which their tools are implemented, in order to take into account the specificities of the technology and the differences in rationalities and perceptions of the archaeologists. It highlights the strategic aspect of mutualization and sharing of equipment, data and skills.

The introduction of the concept of the Archaeological Information System (AIS) made it possible to propose the existence of an integrated generic applicative architecture, computerizing the functions of archaeological practice (Djindjian 1993). It also allowed us to rationalize the software architecture of the AIS, by limiting the amount of useful software for the archaeologists and by simplifying the interfaces between products. The following step, proposed here, is urbanizing the AIS, by defining precisely all the business processes of archaeological research and management, defining an organization of an archaeological professionalization and a more rational and interchanging realization of the AIS applicative and software architecture. Business processes are not the only processes encountered in archaeology. There are also: the processes of the archaeological method, which allow us to control the links between the recorded archaeological data and the target data of the society to be reconstituted; the systemic processes which are running the operations of the societies which the archaeologist is trying to reconstitute: technical systems, economical systems, culture change, etc. The progressive development of the process approach, will constitute a significant evolution in archaeology, not only for the archaeologist business and archaeological methods, but also for the systemic reconstitution capabilities of past societies.

During the restoration work conducted on the original decoration in the heart of the cathedral of Chartres, the archaeological service of the city of Chartres conducted a series of surveys and made a study of the evidence left from the various phases of construction. A general overview of the masonry (vaults, high windows, and triforium) was completed by means of a research project and precise survey of the location of the putlog holes and the holes in the vault. From the detailed manual survey it was possible to create a complete three dimensional topographical plan and thanks to this data, to create a precise model of those parts of the cathedral showing the irregularities in construction like the width of the bays, the height of the vaults, the diameters of the rosettes, the height of the lancet windows. This set of information was georeferenced and compared to the architectural plan that had been drawn by J.-B.-A. Lassus (1807-1857) and published in 1842. This method allowed us to define and correct this latter document which turned out to be more a stylistic analysis than a precise topographical survey. The final report on this operation has not yet been completed but in this article we are offering a presentation of the methodology applied and the first results.

Since 2005 the Archaeological Department of Chartres has conducted numerous activities in the metropolitan area and outside. One of the missions of the department is to present to the public the archaeological results using various media (articles in the city’s monthly magazine, newspapers, exhibitions, conferences etc.), in order to justify its activity. 3D modelling is a simple way to report archaeological observations and assumptions. Modelling tools have been applied to research on different periods (antiquity, middle ages and modern times), different scales: individual archaeological structures (kilns, graves, etc.), archaeological sites (Gallo-Roman villas and shrines, Merovingian hamlets, etc.) up to the size of a city. Virtual reconstructions can also be used to test scientific assumptions, particularly in architecture (Merovingian pit houses, for example).

The use of virtual imaging in the framework of preventive archaeology helps us understand, describe and interpret the vestiges that one finds on the terrain. 3D reproduction has often been considered as a tool for data dissemination that is intended for the general public. Nevertheless, for several years now the new tools available allow us to optimize work on the terrain as well as asking new questions about the interpretation and consequently, creating new prospects for research. The archaeological services, whose main task is related to prevention, must deal with these requirements for understanding while at the same time facing time limitations. At the archaeology office of the Département of Aisne, we were able to create a process for 3D representation on a project concerning a modern tile factory. This work made it possible for us to confirm or invalidate the hypotheses and to offer new answers to questions which had not been brought up in the field during the research project. Virtual reality in preventive archaeology is supported by a potential that is as scientific as it is communicative and which archaeologists will have to deal with.

Analysis of prehistoric art is inseparable from the study of its supports, movable or on walls. Increasingly, this topic is included among the research aims of modern studies. The contribution of several techniques of restoration in 3D (scanner/laser, photogrammetry, microtopography, etc.) makes it possible to approach different graphic productions and their areas. Beyond the virtual modeling of wall, or decorated artifacts, it is interesting to make use of an adapted numeric support to incorporate and analyze natural, graphic and archaeological information (nature of area, engravings, paintings, flagged items, etc.). We propose here to make a comparison of each technique, to describe in detail its contribution and complementarity in the research of paleolithic art, using two examples. First, the Blanchard cave (Indre), now being studied as part of the MADAPCA research program subsidized by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, second, the site of la Marche (Vienne).

Research at the Solutrean site at Fressignes (Indre) was largely preceded by digital input methods. Only the final campaigns (1998-2005) made it possible to deploy on the terrain an acquisition software for the spatial data and the archaeological characteristics, FrAcTool, which had been specially developed for the site. The data bank that had been elaborated reported the data on the terrain and completed it by using the other tools covering the analytical description of all the work that had been done since the research project had been started in 1983: digital retrieval of the coordinates, numbering of the photographs, stratigraphical layers, their spatial context and their georeferenced mosaicing. Moreover, all of the coordinates were checked simultaneously by mathematical models. The application of 3D is prepared by georeferencing and mosaicing of the images. The triangulation of the shadows of the objects gives the vertical sections of the terrain, the contours and the orthophotos. Laser surveys of the terrain constitute the final phase for the volumetric representation of the progressive spatial data during research.

The ‘Progetto Shawbak. Ricerca, conservazione e valorizzazione del Crac’ de Montreal is a multidisciplinary project conducted by the Florence University Chair of Medieval Archaeology. An important objective of the work, pursued with the collaboration of Dr. Pierre Drap, Chargé de recherche at CNRS LSIS UMR 6168, is the realization of a 3D archaeological information system to manage a big amount of textual and graphic data. For this reason we tried to create a system that could handle all archaeological data in a single database that allows us to connect the 3D information derived from photogrammetric surveys with other archaeological records. Showback system is being tested on some Shawbak castle upright structures, including the huge Ayyubid Palace and a second site at the gate wall, and it aims to achieve the production of 2D and 3D representations through the queries it answers. This approach can obtain 3D representations of issues (e.g. possibility to see the USM of a particular phase in all analyzed buildings of the site) as well as new archaeological analysis (the development of quantitative analysis on the use of materials, the possibility of obtaining chronological data of the bricks, etc.). Finally, this research has led the Italian-French team to discuss the physics and stratigraphic relations at the basis of the Harris matrix.

By questioning the past, archaeological information is naturally prone to imperfection. Through a series of examples, we will briefly present its various aspects (inaccuracy, uncertainty, vagueness, conflict, lack) which can apply to time, space and function. The first stage consists in the identification, characterization and recording of imperfection in the archaeological information system. At the second stage, the question arises of how the imperfection of knowledge in archaeological hypotheses should be taken into account in terms of analysis, production and restitution. In the SIGRem project, we have chosen to resort to the Fuzzy sets theory. At a final stage, although the promotion through the media of results can nowadays be carried out by a 3D modeling, realistic reconstruct being very often confusingly perceived as truth, we tend to lose the richness of confidence levels we have in our knowledge. Therefore, we will also describe how visual paradigms can be used to enable dynamic perception of uncertainty in dedicated 3D virtual environments.

Prior to 3D modelling, the volume of the remains of monuments was represented in two dimensions by means of drawings. The problem of analysing archaeological documents had already arisen with significant consequences on the final result, in particular when only the foundations of the structure had been found. Instead of an argued reconstruction, the reconstruction was an elevated projection of the plan drawn up by the excavator, the superstructure thus being merely a product of his imagination. Since then, the use of information technology has not changed the situation at all: the final document still lacks scientific value; the superstructure is still a product of the imagination. However, the authors point out, it could be obtained scientifically for any remains using the convergence of multiple indicators pointing in the same direction and towards the same conclusion.

Since laser scanning first appeared, 3D restitutions are used increasingly on decorated archaeological and rock art sites. This communication aims at presenting such restitutions (from field data collection to modeling) as applied to the Chauvet Cave. It addresses a diversified set of questions. We shall start with questions raised by karstologists, for whom 3D models represent the base of a geomorphologic pattern and are then used to model, as close to reality as possible, landscapes as they were at the time of the human occupation of the site. From then on, other fields will benefit from the model. Our challenge is to include in the final virtual reality output all the requirements of geomorphology, archaeology, and cultural mediation in order to render the extraordinary richness of the Chauvet Cave.

Underwater archaeology has to depend on reliable and precise readings with limitations of access sometimes requiring an analysis and data interpretation on the site. In order to create optimal study conditions, the production of a virtual facsimile was planned. As part of the VENUS (Virtual ExploratioN of Underwater Sites) project, a procedure combining photogrammetry and ontological definition of artifacts was elaborated. These objects, essentially amphorae, are numerically modelled and viewed from photogrammetric measures taken on the site. 2D and 3D reconstructions are then obtained in standard GIS format.