Millennia Research Limited uses GIS (Geographic Information Systems) for a variety of tasks, including creating and producing maps for reports and presentations, storing and managing spatial archaeological data, and creating archaeological potential models.
Geographic Information Systems
Millennia is a leader in modelling for archaeological potential, with current knowledge of approaches, methods, and techniques in the field of modelling. Millennia’s modelling techniques combine expert knowledge of the archaeology and ethnography of British Columbia with statistical defensibility and standard measures of performance. Custom software allows for two basic steps: first, individual variables, or combinations of variables, are analysed for their association with archaeological sites; second, the significant variables are combined in different ways to produce predictive models. Once these models are performing reasonably well, they are translated into GIS for final testing, ground truthing, and fine-tuning.
LiDAR model of portion of NE British Columbia, model in red, sites in blue
LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) has also been used for modelling, and has been found to perform extremely well as compared to traditional modelling methods. The extremely high resolution bare-earth DEM (Digital Elevation Model) resulting from LiDAR survey can be used to identify microtopographic landform features, such as knolls and small ridges, as small as 5m across.
Millennia’s primary GIS and Mapping software is ESRI’s ArcGIS Desktop, with Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst.