Created the world’s first map of the archaeological heritage of Russia
Scientists of the Institute of archaeology (IA) RAS has developed and launched a geographic information system “Archaeological monuments of Russia” — the country’s first electronic map, containing data on more than 15 thousand objects.
The results of the research presented in the journal “Russian archaeology”, stated in the press release received by the editors”.ru”.
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Attempts to create national registers of archaeological sites were undertaken in European countries since the beginning of the XIX century, today they exist in Austria, Hungary, Poland, France, while, for example, in Germany and in the UK there is no centralised databases, and information is dispersed to the regional registries.
Since 2014 the group under the supervision of the Director of IO RAS Nikolai Makarov began to create the basis for national electronic archaeological map.
Scientists have developed standard descriptions of the monument, which includes the object name, type, chronological attribution, belonging to river and sea pool, the peculiarities of the relief, geographical coordinates and information about the study. The card was developed the automated system of information processing.
Currently in the database, which is based on archaeological maps, loaded information about the 15367 objects of archaeological heritage, were investigated from 2009 to 2012, and also about 11230 “empty” holes (vertical mining workings of the material), where it was found cultural layers.
It turned out that the archaeological monuments on the territory of Russia is distributed very unevenly.
Almost 73 per cent of the archaeological monuments of Russia (11176 objects) are West of the Urals.
Scientists emphasize that this is only the beginning, because in the Institute archives has information about 133 thousands of monuments are investigated in 1945.
“We decided that the core of the card will be the most recent information, and it is quite representative, allows you to get a General overview of archaeological geography. Of course, we will continue to make data and after some time it will become much better” — said Nikolai Makarov.