Internet Archaeol. 16. Rajala. Raw data

3.4 Raw data?

Archaeological objects, either archaeological sites or archaeological artefacts, have been generally viewed as 'raw data' that has to be transformed to fit raster and vector data models. However, both 'raw data' and resulting GIS data are end products of a number of different processes, including data definition and data collection. The well-acknowledged conceptual problems – drawing boundaries and defining archaeological entities – are not problems unique to archaeological GIS studies but to archaeology as a whole (cf. Carman 1999). Although Zubrow (1990a) was advocating the view that database structures and GIS would reform archaeological theory, this cannot be true since the archaeological issues involved are made explicit within general archaeological theory. The underlying characteristics affecting the decision processes behind a database design are ultimately archaeological, even if the choice of database objects defines the presentation. However, van Leusen (1993, 110-11) has pointed out that databases have forced archaeologists to construct clear definitions, deal with missing data and work with precise data types.

Much of what has been perceived as 'data' is environmental or otherwise collected outside archaeology (e.g. Gaffney and Stančić 1991). The creation of map layers of data (cf. Burrough 1986; Burrough and McDonnell 1998) is defined by specific research activities in other disciplines. Thus, issues like the effect of different algorithms (Kvamme 1990) are not uniquely archaeological problems but shared by all GIS practitioners. The quality of digital map data is dependent on non-archaeological issues. Kvamme (1990) pointed out that archaeologists were usually concerned only with the quality of archaeological data. As a consequence, when the atemporality of environmental maps and the lack of palaeo-environmental data were fully realised (cf. Gaffney and Stančić 1991; Castleford 1992; Gaffney et al. 1995a; 1995b; 1996), the quality of non-archaeological data became central and that of archaeological data became somewhat neglected. In any case, the situation where poor data quality and highly developed methods co-exist (cf. e.g. Woodman and Woodward 2002) is untenable.