SAA Slides, GIScience and Temple of the Cross

Hello friends. The FTP site where I had previously stored several of the links in my last post is no longer working, so I have uploaded my files to another Internet location (Google Docs) and I have now updated my previous blog posting as can be seen below.

Here is the slide presentation that I created for the 2009 Society of American Archaeologists Conference in Atlanta:

Here is the new link to the Palenque Flyover:

Clarification on the Term "Incensario"

I just realized that some of my readers might not have know what I was referring to in my previous post when I wrote the term Palenque "incensario".  The image above is an example of an incensario that was found in the terraces of the Temple of the Cross. In reality, these large ceramic artifacts are believed to be the stands that went on top of the incensario (Spanish word for censor).  The censors and their associated stands were used by ancient Palencanos to burn incense for the veneration of their 3 major gods.
 
Above is an image of a North American totum pole.  The man standing beside the pole is unidentified in the book from which I scanned this photo (Nabokov and Easton 1989).  The reason that I include a picture of a totum pole here is because Miguel Angel Fernandez, an archaeologist who excavated at Palenque in the 1940's was one of the first to notice the resemblance of the incensarios to North American totum poles.  According to Alfonso Morales, one of the more recent archaeologist who has worked at Palenque, the earliest term used to describe the "porta-incensarios" was "cilindro".

What a Mess

One of the most important things that I must do in order to move forward with my dissertation research is to establish artifact typologies and classifications. I have spent the last two weeks working on these classifications and I think that I have finally made some progress. Above is a photo of only a few of the lists and categories that I have created, deleted and edited.

This painful and confusing process has helped me decide upon what feature datasets and feature classes I should create in ArcGIS and what corresponding Excel spreadsheets that I should formulate so that I can link the spreadsheets into the map. Above is a screenshot of ArcCatalog where you can see some of my categories. By entering artifact numbers into the appropriate feature class category and then placing that same artifact number in the Excel spreadsheet containing data about that artifact, I will be able to link the map with the data in a simple manner that even novice GIS users can replicate. One of my research goals is to try to figure out how to encourage Mesoamerican archaeologists to use GIS applications and I think that this linking method will help.