GIS Day 2024

Every November, GIS Day is a celebration of the innovative applications of GIS! GIS, short for geographic information systems, are databases that help you store, visualize, and analyze spatial data (data with locational information). Today, most of this work is done through digital databases that can incorporate mobile apps for data collection and user interfaces online for viewing and sharing data. GIS is a field in and of itself, but it also an important toolkit that has been incorporated into many fields of study, industry, and commercial ventures. 

I (Emily Jane) have recently been working on a graduate certificate in GIS to do more with archaeological and heritage data at FPAN. But I'm by no means the only person using these skills in our organization! To celebrate, I thought I'd sit down with our resident expert, HMS Florida Database manager Kassie Kemp, to talk about all the cool ways GIS helps us do our work.

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Emily Jane (EmJay): Happy GIS Day, Kassie!

Kassie (KK): Happy GIS Day! Welcome to the GIS fold. 

EmJay: I'm excited to be inducted into such a cool group! I thought we could chat a little bit about GIS and how we use it at FPAN. But before we get into all of that, I just wanted to start by asking what got you into GIS in the first place?

KK: It was a suggested class in my undergraduate program. I had heard about GIS but had no idea what it was. It ended up being the greatest class ever! GIS combines all the things I love: data, computer processing, and archaeology. The class wasn't specific to archaeology but it was one of the applications that the class covered. At that time, there weren't a lot of places offering GIS to archaeology students at the undergraduate level, so I was very fortunate to learn about it so early in my career.

EmJay: That's awesome. I decided to learn GIS after working so much with you on our projects at work. I guess my entry into the world of GIS was through the data collection we do in the field. And then I'd come back to office to watch you turn it into something beautiful and magical. What is your favorite thing about GIS?

Here's a photo of Emily Jane in her natural habitat, amongst the palmettos using our GNSS receiver to map shorelines!

KK: Hahaha. Oh yes, GIS is all about visualization. Archaeology itself is a lot about visuals as well, and so that visualization in GIS can help us look at the data across a site itself, or at clusters of sites across states or regions. We can learn a lot about past cultures by looking at where things were. With all of the digital GIS programs, we can do this so easily today. And the analysis tools in the software can help us do higher levels of data analysis, which can even give us even more insights! 

As part of my field school, we actually mapped in our test units into GIS. Archaeology is destructive by nature, so GIS provided a way to archive and document the test units we had excavated. This allows others to examine and reexamine the sites that are no longer there.

EmJay: I agree. So much of archaeology is about understanding the context of artifacts, features, and sites. And a huge part of this context is that locational data. I can't imagine how much more difficult all of this was before the digital programs. So tell me more about how you use GIS at FPAN.

KK: I do so many things in GIS at FPAN! A lot of centers around recording and documenting resources. The first step in this it to check to see if a site is recorded in a given location, or to see if a recorded site is in the correct location. I take the data my colleagues collect in the field, or information collected by our Heritage Monitoring Scouts, to check and update the locations of site they've visited. GIS makes this very easy because I can see where all of the sites are on a basemap of the real world. 

Here's an example of one of the simple maps Kassie has created to record a cemetery in Nassau County.

Another huge part of what I do is map making. Turning this circle representing a site into a map that can convey information about where and what the site is. A lot of the maps go into the Florida Master Site File (FMSF) with the forms for sites we're newly recording or updating. But I also make maps for public programs, presentations, and publications.

In addition to creating and updating data, I also manage known information. The HMS Florida Monitoring Database is all map based. We are constantly updating it with new information from the FMSF and adding new tools and layers like sea level rise projections, historic maps, and aerial imagery.

And sometimes I get to do fun projects like mapping shorelines and comparing the data collected through time to see changes through time like erosion. Or I use old maps and aerials to help us relocate sites. This often involves georeferencing the imagery and then pulling spatial information from it. 

Map showing the analysis of shoreline loss Kassie created during out People of Guana project.

EmJay: We do so much with GIS! I think back to when we had less of these tools and I don't know how we accomplished what we did. One of the major things I've been using it for is to attach the locational data to GPR surveys. I collect the location of grid in the field using our database and then georeference the final slices from the survey to this grids. This allows us to go back out in the field and pinpoint any anomalies we found. 

Here's an example of a map showing the results from a GPR survey.

Thanks again for chatting GIS with me! I look forward to working with you on whatever cool project we think up next!

KK: Anytime! I do too!

Words and images by Emily Jane Murray and Kassie Kemp, FPAN Staff.