IOSA.it Open Archaeology

In 2010, using and developing free and open source software for archaeological research is not interesting news: lots of us do that nowadays, and the quality and quantity of available software and programming libraries is something not questionable. But was it the same 5 years ago ? It was very different, believe me. In 2005 the IOSA project was less than one year old, GRASS GIS 6.0 beta was right there and it looked to us like just having a human graphical interface to a free GIS program would help solving any problem. Ubuntu Linux was just a Warty Warthog. But this is history.
What I'm going to write today is instead the archaeology of free and open source software in archaeology. A few weeks ago I found two unrelated items that will fit perfectly in such an archaeological study.

How many code sprints and hackmeetings are going to happen in the OSGeo world during this new year? The short answer is: a lot of them. If you are near one city, don't miss the chance to meet some OSGeo developers and see them hacking live.

Project	Where	When	Info
Mapbender	Bonn, Germany	February	Mapbender wiki
QuantumGIS	Pisa, Italy	March	http://www.qgis.org/wiki/3._QGIS_Hackfest_in_Pisa_2010
C tribe	New York, USA	February 20-23	OSGeo wiki
OSGeo tribe	Bolsena, Italy	June 6-12	OSGeo wiki

And don't forget FOSS4G 2010 in Barcelona!

Good news from Anna Hodginkson of Oxford Archaeology North via Antiquist:

I would like to announce the release of the Survey and GIS manual produced at Oxford Archaeology North during the last few months after development of new on-site survey and GIS methodologies applicable to any archaeological project.
[ ...]
The downloading software used in this manual is Leice GeoOffice (can be replaced by whatever software comes with the Total Station used) and GIS software is the gvSIG OA Digital Edition. I furthermore recommend Inkscape as a vector editing software for touching up maps produced by gvSIG.
This document is available for download as PDF at http://www.openarchaeology.net/project/survey-and-gis-manual
I would be extremely grateful for feedback!

Forward from Benjamin Ducke (OA Digital):

Dear GIS users,
a beta version of the imminent gvSIG OADE 2010 has just been released.
This release is based on gvSIG 1.9 which represents a milestone achievement in bringing a full-featured, free GIS to everyone's desktops.
Although it is marked "beta", this release is mature and functional. The final release will mostly add minor enhancements.
Please see our release announcement for details on the new features and capabilities, as well as known problems for this release: http://www.oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade/gvsigoade2010beta
There is not yet any updated documentation that covers the new features. So for now please continue using the gvSIG 1.1.2 documentation, which still applies by and large: http://oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade/gvsigdownload
Best regards,
Benjamin

Ten days ago Luca Mandolesi released his pyArchInit QGIS plugin.
pyArchInit is a free/open source tool for the management of excavation data (compatible with Italian ICCD standard record sheets), that integrates itself inside the QGIS environment and gives you a highly portable system designed by an archaeologist for his daily work in rescue excavations.
pyArchInit was presented at the last workshop on archaeology and free/open source software in Rome, you can see Luca's presentation here.

I am in the process of writing/building my dissertation, and dealing with pottery distribution maps and such things, I've just noticed that I miss something important: a ”background” map. Using 21st maps isn't that good, mostly because coastline went under major changes between Roman times and today.

Many excellent case studies exist of the application of geospatial technologies in the archaeological and historical domains, and particular aspects of the subject have been examined in cross-regional and cross-methodological ways. These have been stimulated by - and stimulate - rapid technological change, and a deeper embedding of that technology in research, as scholars from across the humanities become progressively more aware of the immense enabling power afforded by approaching, managing and analyzing their resources geospatially. As this agenda moves beyond the traditional ’magic circle‘ of so-called ’Spatially Aware Professionals‘ to production-level services and methods in the wider humanities communities, we feel that the time has come for a domain-wide overview of the methodologies, and how they relate to one another.