XYZT-NYC: Exploring Development of a 3D Spatiotemporal Database for New York City Archaeology

Kenneth Mack, AKRF

Beginning in the 1970s, with that era’s seminal wave of environmental protection legislation, land and infrastructure development across New York City has spawned a trove of archaeological data. Unearthed artifacts, structures, and landscape modifications provide rich primary-source information to accompany historical documents that describe how earlier generations of New Yorkers, Nieuw Amsterdammers and Lenape lived. Thanks to decades of tireless research, excavation and documentation by the City’s archaeologists at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), and the consulting archaeologists who contract with the City, thousands of reports representing careful documentary research and archaeological fieldwork have been posted on the agency’s web site, accessible to all. Due to budget limitations, relentless development forces, and changing administrations, LPC’s Archaeology Department has its hands full simply maintaining critical records and keeping the environmental review process moving forward. In the early 2000s, recognizing that archaeological data is fundamentally spatial in nature, and that the associated research problems benefit from (or require) spatial analysis, LPC decided to migrate its database and tracking system of archaeological sites and projects to a GIS-based system. This paper will review some of the data-matching, accuracy, and system-integration challenges encountered during the migration. The early adoption of a GIS system was effective enough that it was expanded to include tracking of architectural as well as archaeological sites, and the system is still in use today. In 2015 a pilot project explored potential challenges and rewards of expanding the archaeological database to include 3D and temporal capabilities. This paper will present some of the problems, considerations, and results of this exploration. As an environmental consultant, the author supported the excavation and analysis of the remains of the18th-century ship discovered at the former World Trade Center site, which was used as a case study in the development of the pilot 3D database.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 173. GIS and Archaeology of New York City