GIS 5265 Module 3: Ethics in Archaeological GIS

This week's assignment aimed to place GIS data and research within a discussion of ethics in archaeological research.  How do we conduct research that includes (or is primarily) spatial data when site location is a sensitive issue?  The assignment began with an exploration of the Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities (MEGA, http://www.megajordan.org/Map), an online geodatabase of archaeological sites in Jordan.  With different levels of access depending on user category, the project aims to facilitate academic research as well as provide information for conservationists and the public to aid in protecting the sites.

The actual lab portion of this week's assignment was largely a review of how to create and use a geodatabase in ArcMap, but it added a discussion of the security benefits of geodatabases over isolated shapefiles in multiple folders.  By collecting all data files in a single database, one has more control over who has access to the data therein.  It is much more difficult to control and protect data spread over multiple locations.

This module also explored methods of creating new point feature classes in our geodatabase.  In the map above, Petra was added as its own layer by directly entering its latitude and longitude coordinates in an ArcMap edit session.  The other sites were imported from an Excel spreadsheet containing each site's name, description, and coordinates.  In completing the above map, my main creative contribution was converting all site labels to annotations stored in the map (after setting the font and halo) for better placement.  I also created a definition query to remove the Petra location that was included in the Excel spreadsheet.

The ethics of sharing archaeological data is a big topic without clear answers.  On the one hand, we would like to educate the public as much as possible, hoping that through education we can minimize the desire to engage in activities that will damage sites.  Unfortunately, there will likely always be a small number of people willing to irreparably damage sites for potential financial gain (or simply to damage sites through inconsiderate land use).  That is why I think the route taken by the State Historic Preservation Offices (at least the ones I am familiar with) in restricting access to detailed location data is prudent.