Geographic Information Science as a Method of Integrating History and Archaeology for Battlefield Interpretation

Abstract

Geographic Information Science (GIS) and technology can be used to integrate history and archaeology for synthesis and interpretation. This study applies Geographic Information Science and technology to reconstruct the events related to a patrol from G Company, 2nd Battalion, 328th Infantry Regiment of the American Expeditionary Forces on October 8 1918 outside the village of Châtel Chéhéry, France that resulted in the award of the Medal of Honor to Alvin C. York. Evidence from documentary records, historic maps, and artefacts from a metal detector survey were incorporated in a spatial database. Spatial analysis of the database using GIS provided a more complete picture of events than either history or archaeology individually.     

Physical Geography and the Geographic Thought Course

The positioning of residential fieldwork early in students' higher education is an established way of attempting to build and engage them in a community of learning. In the study reported here, the benefits of such early residential fieldwork were investigated using Krausse and Coates's seven scales of engagement. These scales consider a number of key indicators – specifically transition, academic, beyond-class, peer, staff–student, online and intellectual engagement. Data on these scales were collected via questionnaires completed by groups of students who did and did not attend such a residential fieldwork event, both before and after the event. A Wilcoxon test of these data showed significant increases in peer and student–staff engagement in the post-fieldwork group only. A Kruskal–Wallis analysis provides evidence that students who had been on residential fieldwork became more involved in a community of learning with both their peers and virtual communities than those who had not. These results support the hypothesis that early residential fieldwork is an effective way of engaging students new to higher education in a community of learning.     

Geographic Zonality and Polar Asymmetry

The author disagrees with Markov's suggestion that polar asymmetry, as a structural element of the earth's geographic envelope, takes precedence over geographic zonality. Sochava proposes instead that asymmetry be regarded merely as an additional characteristic of zonality).     

On the Interaction of the Geographic Sciences

Taking Il'yichev as a starting point, Ryabchikov argues that the different character of the laws of nature and of society requires continued separation of physical and economic geography, but that this division should not prevent the closest interaction between the two, leading to geographic synthesis and, ultimately, geographic forecasting. Ryabchikov regards synthesis Linwhich he includes regional geography] as an approach for generalizing the findings of separate disciplines, and not as a separate science in itself. He also opposes the concept of a unified geography.     

General Geographic Concepts

Following are fragments of a book devoted to theoretical geography on which Professor Smirnov, head of the Department of Economic Geography of Odessa University, was working at the time of his death in July, 1969. An attempt is made to formulate a system of general geographic concepts that would constitute the axiomatic foundation of geography. Several types of fundamental concepts are distinguished: spatial concepts; concepts of the structure and functions of geographical formations; concepts of simple and complex formations, etc. The present paper is limited to an examination of spatial concepts associated with geographical space, which is viewed as one of the general properties of geographical formations. Three basic spatial concepts are discussed: (a) the concept of group space, meaning the space occupied by a set of interrelated objects, as opposed to the individual space of a single object; (b) the concept of spatial integration of phenomena, implying causal relationships; (c) the concept of geographical commonality of phenomena, as opposed to the theory of uniqueness or local exclusiveness. The interplay of general laws and purely local relationships gives rise to a spatial field of interaction known as the geographical field. A geographical formation and its field of interaction may be centered, as in urban settlement, industry and other nodal phenomena, or they may be noncentered, as in rural settlement, agriculture and other spatially continuous phenomena. Other concepts are the area, shape, orientation and spatial dynamics of development of geographical formations.     

Soviet Geographic Literature

A review of geography publishing in the Soviet Union analyzes the output of literature by categories of end-users: (1) publications designed for professional geographers, including works on theory and method, university textbooks, periodicals and serials, and bibliographic and information services; (2) geographic publications intended for the public at large, including regional studies of different levels of sophistication on the Soviet Union and foreign areas as well as popular geography books; (3) geography textbooks and study aids for elementary and secondary schools, which represents the largest portion of geography publishing in terms of volume, with an average of 4 million books printed each year. Recommendations for improvements in geography publishing include the creation of a Council on Literature, made up of professional geographers; the establishment of a centralized publishing house that would specialize in geography (except for textbooks, government publications and special-purpose literature), and the establishment of a translation journal that would disseminate some of the more significant foreign articles in Russian translation.     

Australian Geography and Geographic Information Systems

In Australian universities geography has had traditional links with geology, environmental science and the social sciences. Human geographers’ pursuit of links into the humanities has distracted many of them from understanding the implications of the increasing interest shown by computer science, geomatics and other disciplines in geography. The emergence of a dialogue overseas between the humanities and the geographic information systems community is an important development which may result in this new grouping colonising some of the traditional disciplinary areas of human geography. It is clear that although this emerging cross‐disciplinary linkage has not had any influence on the current phase of mergers and cross‐disciplinary linkages in Australia, it will undoubtedly become important locally in the future.     

Economic Geographic Relations in the Post-Soviet Republics

A senior American economic geographer examines a broad array of geographical factors affecting economic relations among the Soviet successor states (particularly Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) and relations among their constituent regions. Special attention is devoted to legacies of unequal resource endowment and infrastructure development from the Soviet period (e.g., monopolization and spatial concentration of production capacity, “trunklining” of distribution nets) and other factors perpetuating dependency relationships in post-Soviet economic space. 3 tables, 66 references.     

Integrated Regional Geographic Atlases

The author reviews work on atlases of Soviet republics and oblasts published in 1961–64, containing maps on physical geography, population, economy and culture. He finds that these atlases suffer from a lack of practical purposefulness and inadequate coordination. These weaknesses are to be remedied in a new coordinated project of natural-resource atlases of the major republics and economic regions of the USSR initiated in 1963.     

Geographic Conferences in Havana

Professor Semevskiy, who is visiting professor at the University of Havana lists the proceedings of monthly geographic meetings in the Cuban capital. His previous report on geography at the University of Havana appeared in Soviet Geography, November 1963.     

Soviet Geographic Science and Problems of the Transformation of Nature

The author discusses the contribution that Soviet geography can make in solving broad problems of transformation of the natural environment. He cites as examples the Caspian problem, the problem of the surplus moisture of the West Siberian plain, the problem of Central Asian irrigation, the problem of snow-cover control, and the problem of altering the over-all water balance of a given area for the benefit of man.