Fwd: Re: [ArcheOS] Archaeological DB and webgis

[luca]

And again the answer of Yann. Sorry for "extreme farwarding", but i 
think Yann's opinion is important in the discussion.

-------- Original Message (Yann Le Jeunne) --------

Hi luca !

Yes you can forward off course, sorry for the close mail.

Furthermore, the time is not only a dimention like a Z. That is the
trick i think.
In a (let's try :) ) TIS the relation is temporal like topology in
vector, not like another dimension.

That relation is not only defined by numbers (dates) or classes
(periods, centuries). The TAQ and TPQ (real or estimated) + relation
between Context Units define very complexes systems (and maths... like
Bayesian stuff but not only !!). The most simple aims of such a system
is to date all units by relations even those with no elements for
inner datation. In fact most of the time we don't use dates in
archeology :P, only before, after, estimated duration and so on...
(Archaeologist often forgot that a structure has never be dated by a
coin with a date.) Events with a date (wildfire, tephra, dated
destruction, etc.) are quite rare. As you said this is a big subject
!

I only said that IMHO, first of all, for harris matrix graphs (and the
like) the problem must be split. We can't assume that a DB should
provide this without a strong TIS module. My humble experience said to
me that It's a very big peace of work. IMHO a simple and effective DB
for archeology is already an ambitious and usefull project for GIS
use.

But i understand that archaeologist wants to go quick and deep in that
direction :) . There's nearly as many DB as archaeologist in france
(most of them done with Filemaker) and no normalisation, as the first
step of the process (strong object analyse) has not be done and
unified even in very big instances like INRAP. Why ? Because it's a
piece of work ! (and a strong egomaniac human issue)

Of course that's only a point of view. I only say "Take care, your
prey is very big ! " :)

++

yann