On the Web Winter 2001

This column will different from normal, I will be discussing sites that have useful software for archeologists. There is a lot of software available for download on the Internet and much of it is free or available for a nominal cost.

Maps and mapping

Free copies of 19th century ordnance survey maps are available from http://www.old-maps.co.uk/ - free for non-commercial use and ideal for display on a web site. This link is also available via the Ordnance Survey - go to http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk/ and follow Get-a-map. The Ordnance survey also allows the downloading of small modern maps free for non-commercial use, again useful for putting a location map on a web site.

There is plenty of free mapping software available as well; the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration produces Mappad – an ideal product for producing small-scale distribution maps, though it is a 16-bit Windows product. It can be found at www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/softlib.html along with other packages.

The United Nations statistics division produces MapScan a product for converting scanned map images into vector maps at: www.un.org/Depts/unsd/softproj/software/mapscan.htm.

Geophysics

I recently came across the Snuffler geophysics display package for Windows at:

http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/aspen/sussex/snuffler.html

It is free for non-commercial use but currently only in the development stage. I would be interested in the comments of anyone who has used this package.

Radiocarbon

If you are looking to do online calibration of radiocarbon dates then you can do so using the Calib program at The University of Washington or Queen’s University Belfast both accessible via http://calib.org/ or if you prefer you can download the Calib program. This is now up to version 4.3 and available in Windows, DOS, Macintosh and Linux versions.

An alternative is the Oxcal program from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at http://www.rlaha.ox.ac.uk/orau/.

Matrix software

The leader in this field must be ArchEd, from the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, available at http://www.mpi-sb.mpg.de/~arche/StartPage.html, and best of all it is free. The only problem with ArchEd is its limited import capabilities.

The Bonn Archaeological Software Package can also create Harris matrices though it is still a DOS program at in a Windows shell. BASP is available at: http://www.uni-koeln.de/~al001/basp.html. It is available as shareware. There are a number of other packages that can do aerial photographic rectification, 3-D display and finding buildings in posthole distributions.

While on the subject of Harris Matrices, why not take a look at Edward Harris’ homepage at http://www.harrismatrix.com/.

Dictionaries

There are a number of dictionaries and glossaries of archaeology available online, unfortunately most are specific to North America and none are comprehensive but the good news is that they have been collected together on Psst-Hey-U at:

http://pssst-heyu.com/dictionarydownloads/arch.html

Linux

I’ve concentrated on software for the Windows platform in this column but there is another whole world of software out there for the Linux operating system. I may write a future column about Linux if there is enough interest. If anyone out there is using Linux I would like to hear about it. You can contact me at the address below:

Archweb