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Wed 23 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
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    16.30 - 17.30

Fri 25 April
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Sat 26 April
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Wednesday 23 April 2014 11.00 - 13.00
S-2 SPA02 No Road is built to Nowhere? Roles of Transport and Communication Infrastructures in Space and Time
Hörsaal 45 second floor
Network: Spatial and Digital History Chair: Ian Gregory
Organizers: - Discussant: Ian Gregory
Markus Breier : The Way is the Goal - a GIS Approach to Historical Road Modelling
Roads are an important aspect of historical geographies. There are cases in which the courses of historical roads are known, either because maps or archaeological remains exist. However, there are cases in which a road is mentioned in written texts, but there is no further evidence, like archaeological remains or ... (Show more)
Roads are an important aspect of historical geographies. There are cases in which the courses of historical roads are known, either because maps or archaeological remains exist. However, there are cases in which a road is mentioned in written texts, but there is no further evidence, like archaeological remains or historical maps, of this road. Furthermore, in many cases only fragmentary remains of the road do exist. For these cases, where the exact course of the roads in question is unknown, GIS can provide the tools to model the unknown roads. Wayfinding algorithms, like least cost paths, can calculate routes over a landscape, based on assigned cost values. This is a simple, yet efficient way to calculate historical roads.
But which factors are important for the routing of historical roads, besides the relief and rivers? Not just physical factors play an important role, but social, cultural, political and military factors as well. To model historical roads, these factors have to be identified and formalized. Formalization leads to a theoretical model, which can then be implemented in a GIS. The modeling algorithms of a GIS produce sharp results. However, the nature of the research questions allows only fuzzy interpretations. Therefore, visualization of the results has to take this fact into consideration. Furthermore, it is important to think about the epistemological consequences. Can we learn about the past, using GIS? And if so, which aspects of the “historical reality” are discernible? The fuzziness of the visualization and the observation of the observation will help to understand the model of the routes and its restrictions. Furthermore, it allows flexible integration with other historical data.
This paper deals with the following questions:
• What epistemological challenges are involved in a historical GIS analysis?
• Which factors are important for road routing?
• How can these factors be formalized as a prerequisite to include them into GIS based models?
• Which methods of visualization are appropriate for the models of historical roads?
Theoretical considerations which will be discussed are based on social geographic approaches, like systems theory, cybernetics and observer theory. Especially the epistemological questions of GIS in historical research will be highlighted. This approach will provide a framework to integrate the considerations and theories from the contributing disciplines like historiography, transport and social geography, cultural history and archaeology.
Furthermore, two case studies will be presented. The first one is a medieval Byzantine road in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, which is mentioned in documents from the 13th and 14th Century AD. The second case study deals with historical Buddhist pilgrimage routes from the 10th and 11th Century AD in the Western Himalayans. The various aspects of the two cases will be highlighted and the differences discussed.
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Patricia Ferreira Lopes : Analysis of the Railroad Heritage of Andalucía through the Application of a Geographic Information System. Strategies for Management
Between 1848 and the mid-twentieth century, the railroad played a key role in the economic development of Spain, not only in the territorial configuration, but also in the social, political and cultural aspects. In Andalucía, the railroad has had, since its first line in 1854, an important influence on the ... (Show more)
Between 1848 and the mid-twentieth century, the railroad played a key role in the economic development of Spain, not only in the territorial configuration, but also in the social, political and cultural aspects. In Andalucía, the railroad has had, since its first line in 1854, an important influence on the urban growth, development and rise of cities, resulting in new urban structures which are, in our days, one of the major problems faced in the cities.
This paper seeks to show how to generate a record of the railroad process with a spatial and historical analysis of the railroad heritage of Andalucía based on a Geographic Information System (GIS). This methodology aims to propose strategies for the management of this heritage as a cultural, social and economic resource and also for the development of activities aimed at strengthening the relationship between society -territory-heritages.
Keys words: Railroad heritage of Andalucía. Registration and analysis of the railroad process. Geographic Information Systems.
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Thomas Thevenin, RS Schwartz & Christophe Mimeur : Spatial Distortions of Transportation Infrastructures
Understanding the complexities of change over the two dimensions of time and space is an important challenge for social scientist (Massey, 2005). In that way, Geographers and historians have tried, from 15 years, to connect theirs problematic and technique into the methodological framework of Historical GIS. Very useful for building ... (Show more)
Understanding the complexities of change over the two dimensions of time and space is an important challenge for social scientist (Massey, 2005). In that way, Geographers and historians have tried, from 15 years, to connect theirs problematic and technique into the methodological framework of Historical GIS. Very useful for building spatial database, these systems are limited into analysis capabilities and dynamic visualization (Ancelin, 1995 ; Openshaw, 1994).
We propose in this presentation a renewal geovisualisation based on the anamorphosis solutions. These space-time maps are very usefull to understand the impact of the network effect on accessibility over a long period.
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