People & Place: The making of the kingdom of Northumbria
  • Home
    • Meet the Team
  • About
    • Mapping the Data
  • Blog
  • Links
  • County Durham Data
Bamburgh Castle © Brian Buchanan

Mapping the Data

Picture




​Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is an important software program used for combining large amounts of data. The full integration of all the data gathered through archival research and scientific analysis into a complex GIS is a core method for this project. GIS will be used to address the following questions:

What are the variations in burial rite, cemetery form, cemetery size, and how do these relate to traditional views on distinct groupings, territorial heartlands, and kingdoms?

What are the artefact distributions within and across the sites? How do these distributions relate to patterns of consumption, usage, and access to imported materials? How do artefact distributions facilitate the mapping of identity and status?

What are the health and wealth patterns of the funerary evidence as evidenced by the skeletal and scientific analyses?

What are the long-term patterns of local and long-distance movement and migration as shown in the scientific and artefactual data sets?


What are the spatial relationships between cemeteries and burials to other early medieval structures and monuments? Are there relationships to sites and monuments of earlier periods? What role did the natural environment play in cemetery location and use?




Picture
Acquiring Data
Data sets will be obtained from published and unpublished site reports, HERs and SMRs, and other online GIS data sources. New data sets will be constructed based on the scientific analysis and archival research.
Picture

Data Management

All of the data sets will be collated into an integrated spatial database. GIS has the ability to manage vast amounts of spatial data associated with relational databases.
Picture

Spatial Analysis

Spatial analysis in GIS uses mathematical algorithms to analyse the data sets and assess the natural and anthropomorphic processes that affected the data. This can be used to address the key questions discussed above.
Picture

Visualisation

Last but not least, GIS allows the construction of colourful and informative cartographic outputs. GIS can visually investigate data sets thematically and in three-dimensional space.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.