Department of Archaeology at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic

Geospatial Provides Glimpse into the Past

aerial view The Challenge:

The Department of Archaeology at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, began implementing a geographic information system (GIS) project on the Pohansko site near Breclav, a sprawling 9th century fortress in the southeastern corner of the country, in 1995. The first required project was digitalization of the many sketches, plans, and drawings created throughout 40 years of onsite work. In addition, researchers had adopted database technology to organize information relating to tons of artifacts, such as bones, ceramics and jewelry, as well as photographs. Excavation leaders recognized the need for a geospatial solution that would integrate data seamlessly from the database environment and still display 40 years of data and information geographically.

The original GIS laboratory included MicroStation for digitization and an MGE-PC for analysis. In 1997, this system was upgraded to an Intergraph TD 30 Windows NT workstation, and the data was migrated to an Intergraph MGE 5.0 GIS and Microsoft SQL Server 6.0.

As archaeology students unearthed more and more medieval discoveries, University officials recognized the need to once again upgrade its system. The massive amounts of information required a high-quality solution capable of analyzing increasingly large data sets. Researchers required a state-of- the-art geographic information system (GIS) that would enable them to better digitize the archived excavation data, incorporate new information, and initiate complex analysis projects.

The Project Objectives:

Implement a geospatial solution that will provide insight into early Medieval society and culture
Enable researchers to better digitize archived excavation data, incorporate new information, and initiate complex analysis projects with a GIS

The Solution:

In 2002, the Institute of Archaeology became an Intergraph Registered Research Laboratory, and under Intergraph’s guidance, once again upgraded its technical resources. For the site’s integration and analysis functions, the solution’s main tool is GeoMedia Professional 5.0, although MGE is still used for some archived data management. Microsoft Access is the primary repository for graphical and non-graphical data, and MicroStation remains the digitizing platform for vector maps and plans.

Although the Intergraph solution has dramatically altered the methods used by student researchers to process data and analyze archaeological theories, fieldwork has not changed substantially. It still involves hard physical work – digging trenches and painstakingly identifying and labeling unearthed artifacts.

Researchers chose GeoMedia technology due to its ability to maintain relationships between data sets despite the fact that they are stored in a variety of raster and vector formats in disparate databases. In addition, the solution enables users to validate the connectivity and geometry of the spatial maps, sketches, and drawings.

The geospatial data management solution at Pohansko enables researchers not only to store, query, and retrieve a variety of data types instantly, but also to spatially correlate relationships between artifacts and their discovery locations to better understand how they were used in daily life or special rituals. The solution enables students to apply newly learned excavation and GIS skills and work on practical research projects under the guidance of faculty.

The application of geospatial technology at the Pohansko excavation site earned Masaryk University the “2002 GeoMedia Best Practices Award” for GIS implementation within education from Intergraph.

Future Plans:

In future research projects at the site, the Institute plans to incorporate location based services technology from Intergraph’s IntelliWhere products into the daily fieldwork.

Although this project represents a single site, the faculty believes geospatial and related technology has a great future in analyzing archaeological hypotheses at a given site and then integrating these conclusions with analyses from other sites to gain a regional understanding of historical events and places.

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