Construction of an archaeology and cultural heritage oriented GIS in order to document an ancient city: Case study of the archaeological site of Grand (France)

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This work presents the first steps of an archaeology and cultural heritage G.I.S. implementation on the archeological site of Grand in order to document the archeological map. The GIS project belongs to the branch of gathering documentation and studies of collections in the Collective Research Project (CPR) « L'agglomération antique de Grand »[1]. The implementation of a G.I.S. tool makes possible a precise location of old excavations. All the archeological operations are no longer separate but gathered and synthesized in order to build a coherent spatial database on the scale of the entire archeological site. The short-term target is to share archeological information, while the long-term goal is to keep on backfilling and updating this database. This G.I.S. implementation is the first step to go further on in spatial analysis. This project is supported by the archeological team of the Conseil Général des Vosges [2], in collaboration with the G.I.S. team in the Conseil Général in Épinal. At the end of the 2013 excavation campaign, the archeological map of the site contained in the G.I.S. will be loaded into the Cultural file of the Conseil Général G.I.S. The G.I.S. modelling with the archaeological data from Grand is an experience to repeat with others sites in the G.I.S. of the Conseil Général. The update of old archaeological data is a stake for data conservation and spread. The diffusion of spatial data goes over the archaeological subject: G.I.S. is not only a spatial management tool. It becomes also a human science research tool that can bring closer territorial institutions and research groups from a variety of background. This project follows several G.I.S. archeological projects that prove the relevance of G.I.S. as an archeological tool. After compiling a state of the art file of various G.I.S. projects, this set of references has been used as references to validate the choice of the project. In this regard, we can mention the HO-FET model [3] (Historical ...