Beschreibung
Digital technologies have numerous applications in archaeology ranging from the documentation of the archaeological evidence and the analysis of research data to the presentation of results for a wider audience. This volume consists of various studies on the use of methods such as LiDAR (light detection and ranging), archaeological prospection, visibility, mobility and the analysis of the spatial distribution of archaeological objects, applied in various contexts. The case studies vary widely and include the Late Pleistocene in the Northern Iberian Peninsula, the Roman Republican period in Southern Italy, the Formative period in the Andes and the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War. In 2005 a (then) pioneering postgraduate course on the applicability of digital geospatial technologies for archaeology was launched in Spain. Quite unexpectedly, the course has been alive annually for more than 10 years so far, having trained around 300 young archaeologists from Spain, Portugal, and Latin America in the critical use of nowadays popular tools such as GIS, GPS, remote sensing and LiDAR for the documentation and analysis of the archaeological record. To commemorate the first 10 years of the course, a conference was organized in Mérida (Spain) in October 2015. Former students were invited to present and discuss their research in which these technologies were used intensively; this edited book is a selection of those contributions. Through a series of widely varying case-studies, both technically sophisticated and theoretically informed applications of such digital technologies are presented. All the contributors are young researchers, either young doctors or doctorate students, coming from fairly varied archaeological contexts and approaches.
Autorenporträt
Dr. Victorino Mayoral Herrera (Madrid, 1970; PhD, 2001, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain). Staff Scientist at the Instituto de Arqueología-Mérida (Merida Institute of Archaeology) (IAM), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council) (CSIC) in Spain. Before joining the IAM, he developed his career at the Complutense University of Madrid and in the Heritage Administration of the Autonomous Region of Extremadura. His research has been mainly concerned with an archaeological approach to the study of landscape, with two main vectors. On the one hand, a historical analysis focused on the transition between indigenous cultures and the Roman rule in the Mediterranean, without neglecting the longue durée nature of this kind of research. On the other hand, in methodological terms his efforts have been mainly devoted to the exploration of the potential of non-invasive methods like remote sensing, aerial, geophysical, and especially surface survey with the support of geospatial technologies.
