Stemmaweb is a set of tools that has grown out of the Tree of Texts, a CREA ("creative research") project funded by the KU Leuven. The tools were developed variously within the project, on behalf of the project by Shadowcat Systems, and in collaboration with the Interedition project. The source code for all tools and associated libraries is available on Github.
All tools are free for scholarly (nonprofit) use and adaptation. Although some data may be viewed publicly without a user account, use of the tools with your own data is possible only by registering as a user. You may log in with a Google account or another OpenID account, or you may register with a local username and password for use on the site. The Tree of Texts project and KU Leuven retain rights to uploaded text traditions only insofar as it is necessary to store and back them up, display them according to the stated preferences, and analyze them with the tools provided and linked.
Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are tools for the input, analysis and output of spatial data. Geographers initially used these tools for resource management purposes (Burrough 1986). Over the last decade, GIS applications have revolutionized many disciplines in many ways (Marble, 1990), though some disciplines adopted them earlier than others. In the field of archeology, GIS has barely reached the end of the experimental stage. Although it was used fairly regularly in the early 1980?s, (Kvamme, 1996) its present utilization has dramatically increased. At the time this paper was written, over 500 archaeologists worldwide were registered GIS users with the online database "GIS-using archaeologists", developed byPaul Miller and Ian Johnson in 1995. It is suspected that the actual number of GIS users in the archaeology circle is substantially higher.
Archeology, as a spatial discipline, has used GIS in a variety of ways. At the simplest level, GIS has found applications as a database management for archaeological records, with the added benefit of being able to create instant maps. It has been implemented in cultural resource management contexts, where archaeological site locations are predicted using statistical models based on previously identified site locations. It has also been used to simulate diachronic changes in past landscapes, and as a tool in intra-site analysis; although this last application has not enjoyed the same popularity as the others.