qgis for archaeologists – a starter guide 1. bintroduction this guide is aimed at people starting out in archaeological gis, whether commercial companies looking expand their access to gis techniques, community groups seeking a means to digitise, interrogate and ultimately publish their excavation data, or students looking for a professional way to present figures for dissertations or thesis and learn the basics of this now ubiquitous technology. for an entirely more comprehensive look at gis the authors highly recommend visiting the qgis website [http://www.qgis.org/en/docs/index.html], or alternatively read david wheatley and mark gilling’s spatial technology and archaeology: the archaeological applications of gis. 1.1. 12bso what can i do with gis? gis stands for geographical information system and covers a variety of software packages which use maps as the primary means of displaying data. simply, a gis package operates a bit like a database, allowing a user to store, edit, analyse, share and display any information with spatial references. in effect, this means that gis packages be really useful to archaeologists: site surveys can be digitised and used to provide a basis for environmental and artefactual post-excavation analysis, distributions of artefact types may be plotted across sites, regions or countries, or spatial data like lidar or geophysical survey may be plotted and compared together. importantly all of this work can be summarised, mapped and shared with colleagues or the public whether they have access to a gis of their own or not. 1.2. 13bwhy qgis? qgis is a great piece of open-source software that meets all the basic mapping and analysis requirements of most archaeologists. for advanced users qgis also has the ability to expand the core toolkit via plugins and linking to other open-source gis software like grass and saga. unlike some gis programmes, the interface is user friendly, the learning curve gentle and qgis is also supported by a large friendly online community, so if you’re having a problem it’s likely someone has been there before, and will be able to help out. oh and did we mention that qgis is completely free? but most of all, qgis offers an excellent array of functionality and interoperability with a host of add-ons and an active user community willing to share ideas and help out. 1.3. 14bwhat does this bajr guide do? ok, so this guide is meant to be an archaeology specific guide to getting started with gis. you’ll go through installation of qgis, starting a project and working with vector and raster data – you can download the data via the suggested links in the text as well as exercise specific materials here: [sutton hoo] and [forgandenny archaeological survey ]. there’s some more in-depth information on getting the most from datasets, an introduction to the map composer, and finally, a short project to tie everything together. the concept is to provide you with confidence to install the software on your computer and be able to handle various datasets, allowing you to grasp the basics of gis and then begin to use your own data in your own creative way. 3 | p a g e 1