Within the past twenty years, the way that many people conceptualize and consume
spatial information has been revolutionized. Where it was once common to have a static map
displaying locations over a base of imagery, land surface classification, or hypsography, now a
user often expects to have the ability to vary the scale, type of location data displayed, as well
as base layer to overview the data. Web-based mapping officially began in 1993 with the
release of PARC map viewer by the Xerox Corporation, but it was the exponential growth of
internet usage and companies such as MapQuest and Google that turned the technology into
an everyday tool for many in countries well served by internet access (Fu & Sun, 2011).
Availability of high resolution satellite imagery through Google Earth brought an unprecedented
opportunity for archaeological projects to engage in thorough prospection prior to ever setting
foot in the field (Klokoník & Kostelecký, 2010). Such access has also led some researchers to
obtain data directly by digitizing structures from this imagery for further analysis (Sadr &
Rodier, 2012). Though the benefit offered by imagery of this quality is enormous, the web
offers greater capabilities for knowledge dissemination and interaction that provide an
opportunity for spatial data availability currently underserved by any existing application.
Archaeological data has begun to make its way onto the web through both existing
media as well as new applications. Google Earth provides every user with the ability to create
data additions in the form of .kml and .kmz files which can be added to the imagery within their
program. Potential users only need to have the free program installed on their computers, and
they can view these layers over the high resolution imagery. Projects such as the Egypt
(Witschey & Brown, 2012) have presented compiled information for hundreds, if not
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thousands, of sites and made them viewable within Google Earth. The EES Delta Survey also
presents information about the site, its preservation status, and photos from the ground or of
notable artifacts, while the Maya database gives rank dependent rendering to better
understand site distribution and complexity.
There have been advancements working to bring archaeological information onto the
web through mapping applications. An ongoing project called MAGIS, Mediterranean
Archaeology GIS, presents a map based search option, but the resulting data are text based
web pages which link to data about the individual projects within the database (Foss &
Schindler, 2011). Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities (MEGA Jordan) is a $1 million
project headed by the Getty Conservation Institute, and is a major leap forward in web-based
dispersal of archaeological data.
a readily available format for risk assessment and monitoring purposes (Getty Conservation
Institute, 2008). MEGA involved the digitization of antiquities records, and the building of the
geodatabase in addition to the creation of a web viewer application capable of display and
interactive selection of the more than 10,000 Jordanian archaeological sites (Kennedy, 2010;
Getty Conservation Institute, 2011). Designed both for professionals as well as amateurs, sites
well as other Google basemaps,
and the application allows a variety of search functions.
While it is easy to wax poetic over the wealth of information quickly available through
MEGA, the system is only a searchable database. This leaves space for further development of
web mapping for archaeology that PRAGIS is a test case to fill. Just like MEGA, there is a native
geodatabase containing site information as well as several different search options, but it brings
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in some of the functionality typically found only in a desktop GIS into a web-mapping
environment.
1.3 Region of Study The Puuc Region of the Yucatan, Mexico has been the subject of archaeological
exploration for almost 2 centuries and professional archaeological investigation for about 90
years. This time depth has led to many sources with information regarding sites. Knowing how
these works interrelate can often be challenging, and when dealing with sites that have been
called by different names, or amalgamated with other sites, or assigned to geographic locations
with widely varying degrees of accuracy, the opportunity for error increases greatly.
Understanding the regional distribution of archaeological sites can be challenging at best, and
has long relied on the accurate publication of all known locations within a single source. This
presents an inevitable dilemma where information can quickly become obsolete, and any error
made in the publication is likely to be reproduced before a revised edition can be released.
There have been several scholars who have published the known sites within the Puuc
such as Garza and Kurjack (1980) and Dunning (1992), but these both exhibit the limitati