ABSTRACT
One of the most frequent applications of GIS has been in the construction of what have come to be known as predictive models of archaeological resources. Prediction is a central component of spatial analysis, and the goal of predictive modelling is to generate a spatial model that has predictive implications for future observations. In archaeological contexts, this means that the aim is to construct a hypothesis about the location of archaeological remains that can be used to predict the locations of sites that have not yet been observed. Kvamme puts it as follows:
“…a predictive archaeological locational model may simply be regarded as an assignment procedure, or rule, that correctly indicates an archaeological event outcome at a land parcel location with greater probability than that attributable to chance.” (Kvamme 1990a:261)
As with most of the analytical techniques we have discussed, the approach of predictive modelling predates the widespread use of GIS by archaeologists. Much of the work on the development of archaeological predictive models was undertaken in the United States throughout the 1970s and 80s when various government agencies became interested in the prediction of the locations of archaeological sites within fairly large regions from information based on surveys of far smaller areas. A series of seminal discussions relating to the development of predictive modelling can be found in the volume ‘Quantifying the Present and Predicting the Past’ published in 1988 by the US Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management (Judge and Sebastian 1988). This is a volume that any GIS practitioner interested in exploring the potentials of predictive modelling would be well advised to acquaint himself or herself with.
