GIS Projects for teaching and learning about Computational Archaeology
These screen-cast video tutorials cover all the steps to complete the projects below. I include updated versions each year, as some of the details of the software tends to change, but the concepts and basic workflow should remain valid regardless of software version.
- Project 1: Basic GIS data for the Talgar region of southern Kazakhstan, including a pansharpened 15m resolution LandSat ETM (2017), a 30m resolution SRTM DEM, a derived layer of streams, world coutnry outlines, world cities, and the boundaries of some survey areas (in which to digitize soome featuers). This dataset also includes a QGIS project file. Instructions for the project are included, and the main aim is vector digtizing and cartography.
Skills covered:
1) Data import and export QGIS
2) Exploration of GIS data with queries and zooms
3) Vector digitizing and basic data management
4) Production of a styled cartographic map
- Project 2: A GRASS GIS dataset for the Wadi al-Hasa in south-central Jordan. The dataset includes a GRASS location and PERMANENT mapset in the WGS84 UTM projection system. Included data are a DEM derived from 30m SRTM data, a point vector file of sites from the Wadi Hasa Survey, and a points vector file of sites from the Wadi Hasa North Bank survey. Instructions for the project are included, and the main aim is terrain analysis, least cost analysis, basic statistical analysis, and 3D rendering in GRASS. These data were used in my paper "Integrating older survey data into modern research paradigms," published in Advances in Archaeological Practice.
Skills covered:
1) Terrain analysis
2) Least-cost analysis
3) Querying raster data with vector points
4) Building on previous vector analysis and querying skills
- Project 3: This project uses the same data as for Project 2, above. Instructions for the project are included, and the main aim is predictive modeling, including visibility analysis. You should watch the videos about predictive modeling and viewshed analysis in both the 2017 and 2018 playlists, as they both cover aspects of this project.
Skills covered:
1) Cumulative viewshed analysis
2) Statistical analysis
3) Use of the map calculator
- Project 4: This project includes a folder of nadir aerial UAV images of historic harm houses from Southern Italy for qualitative imagery analysis in GIMP and a zipped GRASS location containing a portion of a 2017 LandSat 7 tile of the same region for multi-band imagery analysis in GRASS GIS. Note that the tutorials for the qualitative portions of this project are only in the 2017 playlist, as nothing much has changed in the GIMP workflow (despite their being a more recent version of GIMP). The GRASS portions of this project are covered in both the 2017 and 2018 playlist.
Skills covered:
1) Qualitative and Quantitative Pattern Analysis
2) False-color and Multi-Band Image Analysis
3) Image Classification
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