Archeotracker

Abstract

Field-walking survey, the historically oldest method of modern archaeology, has undergone little technical development in its field phase. However, the question of the validity and representativeness of the data obtained gave rise to many discussions. The arrival of GPS was a significant improvement in recording capabilities, but remains limited to in-situ recording and analysis. Systematic georeferencing of off-site material has been attempted, but remains experimental, due to the technical complexity it entails, but above all because of its low cost-efficiency in terms of time spent on the documented area. We present an application for mobile phones using the increasingly powerful GPS chips embedded by them. The application allows a real time recording of the trace of a prospector’s path and the artifacts that were observed and collected. The GIS operation of the data collected enables the validity of the measured corpus to be evaluated and an intra-parcel spatial analysis of the surface material to be developed, capable of objectifying the identification of sites, specifying their extent and morphology, while maintaining a good performance of field operations.

Keywords

• methodology
• fieldwalking survey
• Gps
• mobile application
• spatial analysis