IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgeogr/v2y2022i1p5-67d744281.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Juxtaposing GIS and Archaeologically Mapped Ancient Road Routes

Author

Listed:
  • Paddington Hodza

    (Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA)

  • Kurtis A. Butler

    (Wyoming Geographic Information Science Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA)

Abstract

Mapping ancient roads is crucial to tell credible geospatial stories about where, how, or why different people might have travelled or transported materials within and between places in the distant past. Achieving this process is challenging and commonly accomplished by means of archaeological and GIS methods and materials. It is not uncommon for different experts employing these methods to generate inconsistent delineations of the same ancient roads, creating confusion about how to produce knowledge and decisions based on multiple geospatial perspectives. This yet to be adequately addressed problem motivates our desire to enrich existing literature on the nature and extents of these differences. We juxtapose GIS and archaeologically generated road maps for northern Etruria, a region of ancient Italy with a well-developed road network built by the Etruscans and Romans. We reveal map differences through a map comparison approach that integrates a broad set of qualitative and quantitative measures plus geospatial concepts and strategies. The differences are evident in route locations, sinuosities, lengths, and complexities of the terrains on which the routes were set as defined by subtle variations in elevation, slope, and ruggedness. They ranged from 11.2–34.4 km in road length, 0–65.7 m in road relief, 1.0–13.5% in mean road grade, 0.07–0.79 in detour indices and 0.19–3.08 for mean terrain roughness indices, all of which can be considerable depending on application. Taken together, the measures proved effective in furthering our understanding of the range of possible disagreements between ancient linear features mapped by different experts and methods and are extensible for other application areas. They point to the importance of explicitly acknowledging and maintaining all usable perspectives in geospatial databases as well as visualization and analysis processes, regardless of levels of disagreement, and especially where ground-truth informed assessments cannot be reliably performed.

Suggested Citation

  • Paddington Hodza & Kurtis A. Butler, 2022. "Juxtaposing GIS and Archaeologically Mapped Ancient Road Routes," Geographies, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgeogr:v:2:y:2022:i:1:p:5-67:d:744281
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7086/2/1/5/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7086/2/1/5/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Rippon, 2013. "Historic Landscape Character and Sense of Place," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 179-202, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Bocheńska-Skałecka & Maria Ostrowska-Dudys & Edward Hutnik & Wojciech Jakubowski, 2022. "Parameterization in the Analysis of Changes in the Rural Landscape on the Example of Agritourism Farms in Kłodzko District (Poland)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-21, June.
    2. Figlus Tomasz, 2020. "Process of Incorporation and Morphological Transformations of Rural Settlement Patterns in the Context of Urban Development. The Case Study of Łódź," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 39(2), pages 75-95, June.
    3. Jun Jiang & Tiancheng Zhou & Yirui Han & Konomi Ikebe, 2022. "Urban Heritage Conservation and Modern Urban Development from the Perspective of the Historic Urban Landscape Approach: A Case Study of Suzhou," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-20, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jgeogr:v:2:y:2022:i:1:p:5-67:d:744281. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.