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Albery, Boccardo, Spanò
The first aspect is related to the requirements of the archaeological analysis: the topological relations that connect the objects of the
past of which traces have remained are much less legible than the appearances of where they happened.
For this reason, if one wishes to reconstruct the scenario in which a human settlement existed, it is necessary to be able to compare
the data that reveal indications on the social and political structures, the production systems and the exploitation of the natural
resources in a selective manner and at several levels.
These levels were made to correspond to the representation scale of the relative cartographic base that was chosen to visualise the
localisation and distribution of the phenomena under examination; these were sub-divided into three main classes: land, urban and
building. The database allows one to investigate land dynamics, analyse urban conformations and study the settlement stages at an
architectural an archaeological scale, but it is also able to give different reading keys and cognitive routes (Fig. 1).
The second main requirement of the proposed archiving system it is versatility and spreadability; a characteristic that was constantly
considered during the entire planning process was therefore its application in different spatial contexts.
At a practical level, this all meant the precise definition of the individual relationships that connect the geometric entities through
which the research is carried out, that is: fortified, settlement and ecclesiastical structures but also communication routes, mining
sites and those of the transformation of the raw materials and , building techniques, stratigraphic units, archaeological finds etc.
The freedom of being able to compare different types of data at different scales is guaranteed by the georeferencing and
transformation in a single reference system of all the information. A thus programmed organisation of the data is versatile with the
possibility of future integrations and updatings, both in view of the imminent involvement of new fields of study and of the
introduction of new research aspects and can also allow the exchange or integration with other data banks in other fields of study or
other organisations.
Finally, in order to answer the maximum precision and objectivity requirements that historical and archaeological fields involve, a
connection was arranged between another two archives: one contains the dating of all the attributes and so the temporal collocation
of the information (for example, data on the foundations, on the existence of a market, on the existence of production activities etc.).
The sources, publications or the unpublished works that document and bear witness to the particular attribute are catalogued in the
second archive. (Fig. 2)
Figure 1 : G1S ranged scales to analize data