ARKEOGIS, SHARING AND USE OF SPATIALIZED DATA ABOUT THE PAST
ArkeoGIS enables to pool and query – thanks to a mapping interface – the spatialized scientific data about the past (archaeology, environment…). ArkeoGIS is an online platform accessible in four languages (German, English, Spanish and French).
ArkeoGIS is a multidisciplinary application. The databases come from different sources: institutional researchers’ work (either personal or contractual researches), graduate students’ researches, private companies and archaeological heritage management services. They also come from palaeoenvironementalists’, geographers’ and historians’ work. Multidisciplinarity is spurred and promoted All these shared (import protocol) databases are available and can be queried online (webGIS) by ArkeoGIS’ users.
Each user have its own personal and customizable project interface. One can query online all or only a part of these databases, display the results on multiple backgrounds maps, save and export them towards other tools one might use (CSV export).
The chronological frame of the tool is now both customizable and multiple. ArkeoGIS’ multi-chronologies system enables to aggregate, for different areas, information from the Prehistory to the Present. About ten chronologies are already available, from the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean to the Middle East or continental Europe. ArkeoGIS’ geographical frame enables to display information about all of these regions. As today, the most documented areas are the Upper Rhine Valley, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
ArkeoGIS can be used for many different forms of research, individual or collective. It allows, among other things, to handle the data management plan (DMP) for contractual researches. ArkeoGIS is a powerful tool to use during different kind of studies (excavations, synthesis or PhD thesis, etc.).
Several tens of thousands of sites, objects and analysis are already available. ArkeoGIS is also linking several digital tools, allowing its users to be aware of their existence.
Every author submitting his localized data into ArkeoGIS keeps the control over them and is the only one who can amend them. Any user can easily access to other contributors’ data and improve its own database. A directory allows researchers to contact each other. This initiative helps to develop scientific exchanges between countries and institutions.
Hosted by Huma-NUM, ArkeoGIS is a lasting solution (A Handle has been deposited on NAKALA).
The ArkeoGIS’ project is run by the University of Strasbourg.