One of the primary objectives for creating an electronic version of the Stratum VI data was to facilitate analyses of the spatial dimensions of these data. As the industry standard, ESRI?s ArcView GIS was the spatial engine chosen to assist in this effort. Accordingly, all of the original Field Plans relevant to Stratum VI were digitized and saved as ArcView Shape files. Scanned copies of these Field Plans are stored in the ORIGINAL FIELD PLANS folder. In addition, the raw data used to create the various reconstructions which appear in the print publication (Figures 1-11) are stored as Shape files in the GIS DATA folder, where they are organized by Plan ID (e.g. Plan F28, E22, etc.).
Users who have licensed copies of ArcView GIS or ArcGIS will be able to access the contents of the GIS DATA folder directly, and conduct their own independent analyses, including spatial queries of related artifact clusters. Since artifacts were not point-provenienced during excavation, however, only two levels of resolution are possible for such spatial queries: (1) by square, or (2) by locus (when known). To capture these spatial data, x and y coordinates were assigned to all square and locus fields in the Access Database, thus making it possible to integrate artifact assemblages into the GIS by those researchers who wish to do so.
For those without licensed access to ArcView GIS or ArcGIS, it will still be possible to view the GIS data, although with limited editing capability, by installing ArcExplorer, a viewing program which has been made available without license by ESRI. Instructions for installation are provided in PDF format in the ARCEXPLORER folder. For more information regarding ArcView GIS or ArcGIS, or to download the free viewer, you can visit ESRI's website at http://www.esri.com