The Joys of GIS

I've had an extraordinarily busy first quarter of this year. After spending 6 years chained to my desk for my PhD I have, since January, travelled to Rome, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Bern (and I'm not counting numerous UK trips as well). I might moan about my job but at least I get to see the world!

This last trip was to Switzerland where I gave a paper about the work I did for my thesis - all about modelling Roman agricultural systems using GIS. It's funny, sometimes I love archaeology and sometimes I hate it. I mostly hated it in the last few months of my thesis (understandably). I would far rather be tinkering with GIS models or out and about on fieldwork than reading and writing about it.

It's funny how I was attracted to GIS - I think it is purely on an aesthetic level. After having given up art and music formally after A-Level it's arguably the closest thing archaeology can get to being creative on a practical level. There's a famous quote (I forget who by) about GIS which argues that GIS is more than just pretty pictures. Whilst this is absolutely true, I think that when you can create images like these, it certainly makes the interpretation that much more interesting when there's something nice to look at!