>These days were are threatened by GIS. My biggest fear is that once GIS
>becomes popular we will be swamped by articles on GIS applications to
>archaeology which will be good on technique but short on content and
>understanding.
 
This raises an interesting point, and a valid aprehension. We must be sure
to publish appropriately, and that is good sense caution to archaeologists
and editors alike. Oxford produces the Archaeology Computing Newsletter
that is devoted to technical aspects of computers and archaeology, a place
where such articles belong if ground breaking work is really taking place
on a given project. On the more fluid side of communication there is a
listserv (or at least there was) out of the UK that dealt with GIS and
archaeology. It was intended to be a discourse between people applying it.
Any programmers out there are familiar with how handy usenet programming
groups are in support when developing systems and applications.
 
At this point, it has appeared to me that we are applying technology that
has been in place for years in successful and now common application in
architecture, city planning, civil engineering, and so on. We really aren't
on the cutting edge, but merely adapting this technology to our needs. The
major departure being the acceptable degree of accuracy. We do need to
discuss this technology and its application in our field in order to
maximize its awesomepotential, but keeping perspective is crucial. I think
that part of the reason we don't hear much about successful GIS
applications is that there are people out there using it that don't even
feel the need to mention that they are... instead, they just talk about
their findings.
 
David Johnson