sarah craft
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GIS AND REMOTE SENSING IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY

COURSE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

This course is in preparation. 

ASSESSMENT

The main goal of this class is for each student to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to initiate, create and carry out a project in a GIS that answers questions related to archaeological and/or historical investigation, preferably related to their own specific research interests. To that end, in-class time will be devoted to training exercises for the first half of the course, and the majority of evaluation is based on their individual preparation of the project over the course of the semester, which will be the entirety of the focus for the second half of the course. Weekly readings are assigned to familiarize students with broad trends and debates in the application of GIS to archaeological and historical questions. 

Familiarity with the scholarship specifically relevant to their final project is essential to responsibly carrying out their analyses. Therefore students will commence a weekly literature review in the fourth week, for which students will find, read and review articles relevant to their interests and idea for a final project. After two weeks of literature review, students will prepare an abstract proposing their final project. In-class exercises are intended to expose students to possible analyses to support their investigations, and any extra time in the lab after they have completed these exercises will be dedicated to furthering and building their final project, and Weeks 10 & 11 will be supervised lab time, so that students can work on their projects and receive assistance on any problems or issues. 
In-class exercises
Proposal abstract
Literature reviews
Project presentation
Final project 
30% (6 x 5%)
5% 
35% (7 x 5%)
10%
20% 

BOOKS AND READINGS

Required Books: 
Ormsby et al. 2010. Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop. ESRI Press. 


Suggested References and Further Introductory Readings:
Knowles, Anne Kelly (ed.). 2008. Placing history : how maps, spatial data, and GIS are changing historical scholarship. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press. 
Conolly, James and Mark Lake. 2006. Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Corsi, Cristina, Božidar Slapšak and Frank Vermeulen. 2013. Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics: Non-Invasive Survey of Complex Archaeological Sites. Cham: Springer. 


SCHEDULE

WEEK 1 - INTRODUCTION 

Readings
Lilley, Keith D. 2011. "GIS, Spatial Technologies and Digital Mapping," in Research Methods for History, ed. Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 121-140. 

In-class exercise: Exploring ArcMap and ArcCatalog; Symbolizing Features and Rasters (Ormsby et al. 2010, Chapters 1-3) 

WEEK 2 - SETTING UP AN HISTORICAL GIS

Readings
Gregory, Ian N. and Richard G. Healey. 2007. "Historical GIS: Structuring, Mapping and Analysing Geographies of the Past," Progress in Human Geography 31.5: 638-653. 
Morris, R.J. 2011. "Document to Database and Spreadsheet," in Research Methods for History, ed. Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 141-163. 
Conolly, James and Mark Lake. 2006. "The geodatabase," in Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 51-60. 

In-class exercise: Building Geodatabases (Ormsby 2010, Chapter 14). 

WEEK 3 - INTEGRATING HISTORIC MAPS

Readings
Jenny, Bernhard and Lorenz Hurni. 2011. "Studying Cartographic Heritage: Analysis and Visualization of Geometric Distortions," Computers & Graphics 402-411.
Cooper, David and Gary Priestnall. 2011. "The Processual Intertextuality of Literary Cartographies: Critical and Digital Practices," Cartographic Journal 48.4: 250-262. 

In-class exercise: Georectification 

WEEK 4 - GENERATING AND CREATING SHAPEFILES 

Readings
TBD


In-class exercise: Creating Features; Editing Features and Attributes; Querying Features; Analyzing Feature Relationships (Ormsby et al. 2010, Chapters 15 & 16, 8, 12) 
Due in class: Literature review #1

WEEK 5 - REMOTE SENSING 

Readings
Part I: Remote Sensing in Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics, ed. Cristina Corsi, Božidar Slapšak and Frank Vermeulen. Cham: Springer, 11-129. 

In-class exercise: Landscape classification 
Due in class: Literature review #2 

WEEK 6 - VIEWSHEDS 

Readings
Wheatley, David. 2004. "Making Space for an Archaeology of Place," Internet Archaeology 15. 

In-class exercise: Projecting Data in ArcMap (Ormsby et al. 2010, Chapter 13); Creating models (Ormsby et al. 2010, Chapter 20)
Due in class: Project proposal abstract

WEEK 7 - COST SURFACES

Readings
Ortiz-Coder, Pedro. "Creating and Analysing Digital Terrain Models for Archaeological Research," in Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics, ed. Cristina Corsi, Božidar Slapšak and Frank Vermeulen. Cham: Springer,  227-244. 

In-class exercise: Analyzing Spatial Data (Ormsby et al. 2010, Chapter 12); Generating Routes and Paths  

Due in class: Literature review #3 

WEEK 8 - GIS, TEXTS, AND IMAGES

Readings
Selections from Moretti 2005, Graphs, Maps and Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History

Due in class: Literature review #4

WEEK 9 - PRESENTING DATA EFFECTIVELY

Readings
Part IV: Visualisation and Site Management in Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics, ed. Cristina Corsi, Božidar Slapšak and Frank Vermeulen. Cham: Springer, 255-315. 
Selections from Staley 2003 Computers, Visualization, and History 


In-class exercise: Making maps for presentation (Ormsby et al. 2010, Chapter 19) 
Due in class: Literature review #5

WEEK 10 - SUPERVISED LAB TIME

Due in class: Literature review #6

WEEK 11 - SUPERVISED LAB TIME 

Due in class: Literature review #7

WEEK 12 - FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS 

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