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When it was excavated in the 1960s, Fishbourne Roman Palace generated an archive that, for the time, was incredibly structured and detailed. However, by today’s standards, little attention was given to distribution of artefacts across the site, or relative locations of features other than the layout of the major structures.
A recent project has started to rectify this. Three placement students from Reading and Bournemouth Universities have digitised the original excavation plans and the converted the digital files for use in a Geographic Information System (GIS). By adding artefact data to the GIS it is, for the first time, possible to visualise how different classes of object cluster around the site. We can also identify concentrations (or absences) that until now have been impossible to discern.
The richness of the data that can be input into the GIS means that we can identify and compare, for example, variations in the distribution of artefacts according to their material, date, location of manufacture, size, and so on. This potentially provides a window on to how the building was used and developed, as well as site-formation processes, and more. Additional artefact data, such as the results of specialist or chemical analyses, will only add to this richness.
It is anticipated that the GIS will form the basis of a huge range of future research projects. If you have a project in mind that will benefit from this new tool, then get in touch with the Palace on adminfish@sussexpast.co.uk
Text & images: Dr Rob Symmons, Fishbourne Roman Palace
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