The Journey to Berlin - Progress Report 2

Hello all! Welcome back!

This week I wanted to provide a progress report of my project.

If you recall, last week was slow going, but my amazing mother sent me a new laptop! Well, unfortunately, there was some issue with it, so I had to return it after a couple days. The good news is, I still didn’t receive a working ArcGIS code, so I moved on to plan B.

I started looking at the Visualeyes.org visualization tool and Tableau. Tableau didn’t appear to be the right format for my project, so I spent a few hours trying to navigate my way through Visualeyes. Frustration after frustration, I called it quits after five or six hours and did something else. Well, finally, I picked it back up again a couple days later and I am pleased to say I have made PROGRESS!!!

I have dots on a map that appear when they are supposed to! I have created sections in the story part with some words on the screen! This project is no where near complete yet, but I am so happy that it is finally beginning to materialize!!! 

So, to break this down a bit, here’s what I have been able to accomplish: Within the map, I have created the overlay of the medieval trade route map with the basemap and georeferenced. I then created the timeline at the bottom of the screen. I have created a star to highlight where Berlin is. I have created a “dot” for each individual and their timeline according to when they were dated by the excavation team. I also created multiple “chapters” in the storyline. On the image below (sorry for the really poor quality - it was a phone pic of my computer that has been copied), the story that is visible is Berlin. This section will eventually talk about the known historical background of Berlin's earliest years. Other “chapters” I have included is an overall background page, a page about isotope analysis, and a page for each individual. I will have more information about some of the individuals than the others, but I feel that each person should get a voice in this project.

Visualeyes.org uses a google sheet to organize its data. Every input in the program you need to save to the sheet and then save the program. This is cool, but also frustrating. I have found that for some reason, it doesn’t always save and I have to enter something a few times before its stays put. I have found that waiting a few minutes sometimes helps, but in one specific occasion, the only way it would save properly was by me adding it manually to the google sheet.

Even though this isn’t exactly how I wanted the project to go, it will create a really cool visualization that will help me explain my research to my dissertation committee/and the general public. I still plan to go forward for my dissertation using ArcGIS tools as it will be more precise than what this program can allow for, but this is a really good plan B and I am looking forward to seeing the final product.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit!

-The Migrant Isotopist

The Journey to Berlin: Identifying Migrant Routes - Progress Report 1

Hello all! Welcome back.


This week I will be providing an update on the progress of my digital project! If I had to create an abstract for the work right now, this is what it would look like:


The Journey to Berlin: Identifying Migrant Routes.

Berlin, the capital of Germany, was founded sometime during the Medieval Period. Its exact settlement date is unknown, as is information surrounding its earliest years. Bioarchaeology has helped shed some light on this issue. Skeletons from the cemetery of St. Peter’s church, also known as Petriplatz, were excavated and isotope analysis was performed on some of earliest burials (n=13). The combination of oxygen and strontium isotope analysis allowed for an estimation of region of origin for the potential founders of the city. This project furthers that study by mapping in ArcGIS the potential regions of origin for seven of the individuals. In addition to this, it was hypothesized that migrants moved along known trade routes. A Medieval period trade route map overlays the country and Network analysis identifies the most likely route for each individual. The combination of isotope analysis, historical records, and digital tools like ArcGIS and StoryMaps works to interpret and visualize the data in a way that is largely absent from work by Anthropologists and Historians alike. 


Since I am in the earliest stages of developing this project, the title and abstract are works-in-progress. As mentioned, I am currently using ArcGIS StoryMaps as my visualization platform. So far, I’m not overly impressed with the site, but I am also on a learning curve, so time will tell (the issues are most likely user error). To be as transparent in my work this week as possible, this is what has been accomplished. Unlike many of my classmates, my primary data source comes from isotope analysis from the skeletons I researched for my Master’s thesis, rather than literary historical documents. I do have historical contextual information I plan to incorporate into the storytelling aspect of the presentation. Anyhow, I was able to create an account for the StoryMap page, and then spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to think of a title. Ha. I’m happy with it so far. I then played around a bit with the site and the layout options and was able to upload a few images so I can work on the storytelling at the end of the project. I was able to upload the δ¹⁸O map of Germany, the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr map of Germany, and the map identifying the likely region of origin for the seven individuals, all that I created in ArcGIS. The next step is to upload then georeference the Medieval trade route map. I have practiced some with georeferencing to refresh my memory of how to do it, but I’ll need to do it again in the upcoming week.


Not everything has been smooth sailing. I no longer had access to ArcGIS desktop on my personal computer (and even if I did, it would crash it). I also didn’t have access to the program in the classroom lab. I did find some computers on campus that had the most recent ArcGIS software; however, when I started to work with my data, the old basemaps that I had used that were attached to all my data, are no longer available. After a really rough day of feeling defeated, I came home to a HUGE surprise. My mom sent me a new laptop with upgraded capabilities than my previous one (thanks mom!!), so I am now in the process of getting the new software on this computer and will be back at the project soon. 


This project is an exploratory model. If it works out, more or less, in the way that I envision, I plan to incorporate aspects of this into my dissertation research. So, while 13 individuals is definitely not a large sample size, it provides me the knowledge of how to do the work and then implement it in a project for 250+ individuals. At least, that’s the plan. Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit!



-The Migrant Isotopist

Environmental Scan: Doing my research

Hello all! Welcome back.

This week I will be talking more about my project and how it fits within other digital history projects, but also creates its own sort of niche.

Let’s rewind a bit. The last couple weeks I have been discussing my project through Bill Ferster’s ASSERT model. I will not repeat all of that, but I do want to restate what my project is so that way you (the reader) can see how it fits within the realm of digital history projects I list below.

My question I plan to investigate is What were the likely routes that migrants used to travel to this location before they died. Some historical context is needed. For my Master’s degree, I investigated where the potential founders of Berlin migrated from. So, for this project, I will utilize the maps that I created in GIS that show potential region of origin of these settlers based upon their oxygen and strontium isotope values. (I use words like potential, because we cannot be 100% certain that people came from an exact location, but used together, multiple isotopes can narrow down to different regions that would have the same isotopic signatures). Anyhow, for this project I will add a layer in GIS to include a Medieval trade route map. I hypothesize that migrants would have been more likely to travel along known routes to get to what would become Berlin, rather than creating a whole new path. I envision using ArcGIS’s least-cost analysis to determine which route would have been most likely. I plan to represent this (if possible) by illustrating the individuals as dots/or other icon beginning in their region of origin and following their most likely path. I will include the little information I have about the individuals to tell something of their story.   

Before I can start working on this, I need to create what digital historians call an Environmental Scan. This is similar to a literature review, except instead of finding articles on similar research, relevant digital projects need to be found. While this exercise only required three, I have included five that are worth mentioning.

1.      https://www.isoarch.eu/ IsoArcH: An open access and collaborative isotope database for bioarchaeological samples, is a digital project in progress. I have previously reached out to the project director, Dr. Kevin Salesse, for information on how to download their datasets into GIS. This site is a wonderful concept and I really hope it continues to grow in the future.  While this project isn’t so much a digital history project, it does lay the foundations for combining isotope analysis with GIS methodologies. Their work will prove to be valuable for me (and I’m sure many others as their database grows) as I progress through my doctoral dissertation.

  

2.      http://migrationmapping.org/  Migration Mapping and the M2Lab:

This project was created by Dr. Sumita Chakravarty with support from The New School. This project focuses on tying together media (in a number of formats) and migration. The M2Lab is an artistic take on migrant storytelling. Their dataset page brings the viewer to different media representations of migrants and clicking on the links will direct you to an external website. The M2Lab is a more appropriate comparison, if you will, to my own research; however, the M2Lab is more modern with stories being told by the migrants themselves or their immediate family.

  

3.      https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/ Englands immigrants from 1350-1550

This website is a really interesting project. It provides information of actual people who migrated to England between 1350-1550. Demographic information is provided as well as any documents about them (example: letters of protection for John Boyter, 1335). While I don’t have this sort of specific information about the settlers of Berlin, it is interesting that someone was able to create this sort of database and make it an interesting and useful project for anyone who is searching for migrants that from specific regions outside of England to their final resting place (place of residence in England is also identified).

4.      http://internationalschooltoulouse.net/vs/pilgrims/index.htm  Medieval Pilgrimage IST

This site isn’t exactly useful for mapping “my” migrants, but it does illustrate mapping of Pilgrimage routes (something that is useful for my dissertation research). This site is also more of an educational overview than it is a digital history project per se, but I think that it is still relevant in the grander scheme of things, as it is historical, addresses hypothetical routes traveled, and provides additional sources of information that help trace and understand mobility in the past.

5.      https://sarahemilybond.com/2017/02/02/the-itinerarium-egeriae-mapping-egerias-pilgrimage-on-candlemas/ 

      This site is a blog created by Dr. Sarah Bond who is in progress of creating geospatial relationships of women in ancient history with historical documents. While this project focuses on women and ancient texts, it is a great visual representation of another example of what can be mapped utilizing GIS historically.

      

      These projects are both similar to and different from my project. I have highlighted a project that has focused on each component of my research, isotope data through IsoArcH.eu, migrant storytelling through the M2Lab, migrant mapping and storytelling though Englands Immigrants, mapping pilgrimage routes from Medieval Pilgrimage IST, and the GIS mapping of historical texts. I believe that my digital history project fits neatly within this group, combining the different methodologies into one project.

      Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

       -          The Migrant Isotopist

Interactive Visualization - Defining and using the ASSERT model: Part 2

Hello all!

Welcome back. This week I will continue talking about the ASSERT model from Bill Ferster’s (2013) book, Interactive Visualization. I will start by restating what ASSERT stands for and why it’s important. The acronym stands for ASK a question, SEARCH for evidence to answer the question, STRUCTURE that information to answer the question, ENVISION ways to answer the question using the data, REPRESENT the data in a compelling visualization, and TELL a meaningful story using the evidence to answer the question. It is used to help create visualizations that are engaging, educational, and help build onto research of the historical and social sciences.

Last week I focused on the A-S portion of the model. I formed the question (Ask) What were likely routes that migrants used to travel to this location before they died? I determined that this was a good question because it cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, and its narrow scope can be appropriately investigated and answered visually. For the Search portion of the model, I determined that I would have access to sufficient information to help with the rest of the model.

Now that we are caught up, I will finish off the S-E-R-T portions.  

The second S stands for STRUCTURE. Structuring data helps to better make sense of it and allows for better questions to be asked (Ferster, 2013:76). For this step, Ferster explains that quantitative data is often best used by imputing into spreadsheets as it is quicker and more accurate than by using word processing programs. I used Google sheets and Excel for this step. Google sheets is really great for collaborating with people all over the world, and/or, if you’re planning on needing to access the information on different computers. Excel is great because it offers more options than the online version.

For ENVISION, Ferster states that successful applications of information do not communicate data, but rather, a message. For this, I plan to use the data from the Excel sheet and input data into ArcGIS. Then use the strontium and oxygen isotope base layers to intersect the data to show each migrant’s potential region of origin. Then I will create a layer in ArcGIS of the Medieval trade routes in Europe, focusing specifically on Western Europe.

For this project, I plan to REPRESENT the data by attempting to illustrate the mobility and diversity of the founders of Berlin. I am hoping to create a visual representation of each migrant moving along the most likely trade route to the Berlin area. This portion of the model also investigates the interaction of the audience. Ferster discusses the affordances and constraints the creator (in this case, me) needs to think about before and during the visualization creation process. If possible, I would like the user to be able to adjust the movement settings maybe via a slider tool; however, the constraints for this project will likely (mostly) be due to my own novice capabilities as well as the limitations of the program I use.

Finally, I hope to illustrate and TELL a story about the origins of the settlers of Berlin, since the city’s earliest years is unknown. “Stories follow a structure that describes the action over time” (Ferster, 2013:176). Besides the map and the movement of the little icons on the screen, the best part of the project will be this portion of the model. I look forward to being able to give a voice back to each individual, no matter how limited it might be. By learning about these people through their diet, we not only learn a little about the founding of a major European capital city, but we also get a glimpse of the lives of the past through a unique combination of methodologies.

Now that I have explained the model and thought about how to proceed through its development, I look forward to working on it and sharing it with you all!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit!

-The Migrant Isotopist

Interactive Visualization - Defining and using the ASSERT model

Hello all!

Welcome back!  This week I will be writing about the first couple chapters of Bill Ferster’s book, Interactive Visualization (2013). A simplistic way of explaining what information visualization is, is something you look at that provides information about a topic. A photo, a pamphlet, a poster, a web page, anything that can organize data and relay it in a meaningful way. One example Ferster used was of John Snow’s 1854 map of cholera in London. Snow was able to plot the cholera related deaths on a map to illustrate that the outbreak was due to water contamination from a specific water source rather than being an airborne issue as people initially believed.

Using visualizations to understand data may not always provide a full story, but it provides an accessible way to start. The addition of computers to help with visualizations allow for a more in-depth approach for the audience to understand and work with the data. The author states that good visualizations are driven by good questions (Ferster 2013: 45).

But how does one begin?

After reviewing different methods of creating and evaluating visualizations, Bill Ferster introduces the ASSERT model to help create visualizations that are engaging, educational, and help build onto research of the historical and social sciences. The acronym stands for ASK a question, SEARCH for evidence to answer the question, STRUCTURE that information to answer the question, ENVISION ways to answer the question using the data, REPRESENT the data in a compelling visualization, and TELL a meaningful story using the evidence to answer the question.

He first discusses how to write a question that is narrow enough in scope, but also meaningful. A question should be stated in MORE than four or five words. This will help to narrow the question. A question in fewer words is likely too broad. A question should also require more of an answer than a simple yes or no. Ferster suggested using a three-part approach to construct a research question. This includes identifying a focused topic, what questions are needed to explore the topic, and why should someone care about exploring the topic.

Ferster then discusses searching for information. He states that “when evidence is understood in relation to a specific inquiry, the data moves from evidence of something to evidence for something.” (Ferster 2013:66). There are lots of sources for information. Sources come three forms: primary (created at the time), secondary (generally created after the fact), or tertiary (a source that draws on primary and secondary sources – like an encyclopedia or almanac, etc.). Information gathered from these sources provide the data for the visualization.

So, based on just these two chapters, how might this inform my own project?

Well, as I have mentioned in a prior posting, I am an anthropologist. As my blog title may suggest, I study migration through isotope analysis. I use geochemical information gathered from mostly human (and some animal) skeletal remains to answer questions surrounding diet and mobility in the past. So, a basic general question might be something like, were people from this particular cemetery immigrants? This unfortunately results in a yes or no type of response. So, I could adjust it to something like: What were likely routes that migrants used to travel to this location before they died? This is a focused question as it cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. To explore the topic, I would need to map the isotopic values to the landscape to provide an estimate of region of origin for the individuals. Then I would research known roads and trade routes during the period. Why would someone care about this question? For this example, the interest could come from wanting to learn about where the city’s founding settlers came from and how they got there. For this particular question, I do have accessible and reliable information to answer the question.

Since this is just a summary and reflection of Bill Ferster’s first two chapters focusing on the A-S portion of the ASSERT model, stay tuned in upcoming weeks for the remaining portions to see how I work on this question using his model.  

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit!

-The Medieval Isotopist

Question for Bill

1. How do you choose the best visualization method for your project?

2. What have you found to be the best methods for sharing your visualization projects?

Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations - A digital history review

Hello all! Welcome back!
This week I am reviewing a digital history project!

The Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations. https://darmc.harvard.edu/. Created by Harvard University. Edited by Michael McCormick, Eurydice Georganteli, Leland Grigoli, Alexander More, Kelly Gibson, https://darmc.harvard.edu/team. Reviewed October 2019.

*The website is currently under technical updates*

I am an anthropologist who studies migration and diet of individuals in the Medieval period (France and Germany) through the use of chemical analysis. Through isotopic signatures in skeletal remains, I estimate and map region of origin, identifying migrants in the cemetery sample. Maps such as the DARMC is useful for understanding the political and territorial changes occurring before and during the Medieval period and region I study.

Their scholarship is current and they are in progress of updating with more information, currently focusing on the Islamic regions. The information presented is well communicated. Each mapped location that I further investigated even offered a link to external sites for additional information. The team of researchers have taken historical documentation and mapped it accordingly. They are transparent in their knowledge gaps, for example, in the Roman World under the layer “Cities and Settlements” they indicate three different colors for locations that are confirmed, probable, or uncertain. I think this is commendable for an esteemed university to state that they do not necessarily have all the information.

The overall design of the site is fantastic. They clearly spent a lot of time going through historical documents, creating databases, and making the different layers for each map. The only suggestion I have is one that may or may not be addressed due to how the ArcGIS software works. When opening up a map, all the layers are automatically highlighted, so you have to unclick everything before you can choose what you want to look at. Also, differentiating major cities during the various time periods is difficult as all the cities icons are the same shape and color. That makes it difficult to compare without having to click and unclick the layers to see the change. The website worked smoothly on my Google Pixel 3. The map was easy to navigate, almost easier than the computer version, and the menus were easy to see and work with on the mobile device. I did not have access to a tablet, although I imagine that it would work similarly to my Pixel 3.

The project is created for amateurs, students, and scholars interested in many different facets of Roman and Medieval life. The team acknowledges incomplete information within their website, for example, the Islamic world, however, they state that they have begun to include this in their work. What they do have available for the users more than makes up for areas they are currently missing. They offer four distinct maps including: Environmental History, which includes locations as well as scientific and historical sources of climate information; Archaeology, which includes the location of roman roads, archaeological excavations, shipwrecks, and more; the Medieval World, which includes kingdom boundaries at different periods, major towns, crusade routes, and way more; and the Roman World, which illustrates provinces, towns, cemeteries, roads, forts, and even baths, dams, and waterwheels. Just about anyone with an interest in Roman or Medieval European history would find this website useful in some capacity.    

The site offers the user a multitude of layers that can be manipulated in various ways. I found that when you highlighted a layer, you could look more closely at its legend and also change the opacity if needed. One of my favorite features is the measure tool. In in printed version, the various map layers would take up multiple pages at a magnification that was easily readable. To save room, though, often times you find books print small maps and have distance scales that do not correlate with each other, making it difficult to “eyeball” distance or boundary lines accurately. This website allows the user to not only layer the features that are most important, but also provide a way to measure distance between places.

The DARMC team is a multidisciplinary group spanning all levels of scholarship across multiple departments and universities. Harvard included a number of undergraduate students in this project over the years. Harvard’s current team includes undergraduate students at Harvard College and professors from the department of History, Center for Geographic Analysis, department of History of Art and Architecture and Medieval Studies, and the department of History and Science of the Human Past. Other individuals who are currently working on this project is a graduate student from the department of History at Brown University and an assistant professor from the department of History at the University of Dallas. Former scholars associated with the project come from the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, and London School of Economics.

The DARMC team uses ESRI ArcGIS software products. Their geodatabases are downloadable and they provide instructions on how to access certain data. They have a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, meaning that their work is freely available to the academic community and that it is not permissible to charge for access to the data. Within the maps, it is possible to search using the search bar for something specific. I searched for specific towns and then for a shipwreck. Each search pulled a list of locations and then within the site location the user could review all the different features that is recorded for that place.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit!

-The Medieval Isotopist

GIS and the Holocaust

Hello all! Welcome back!

This week I am discussing the use of GIS in exploring historical events, specifically as it applies to the readings from Geographies of the Holocaust (Knowles et al., 2014), but also how it may benefit other topics as well.

The authors analyzed the Holocaust from a perspective different from many other scholars. They looked at it as a geographical phenomenon. Working with a team of multidisciplinary scholars from Holocaust Studies, Historical Geography and others within the “spatial humanities”, and GIScience, the collaboration looked at the Holocaust geospatially, asking questions surrounding place and space, as well as understanding how place and space change over time. The team researched vast amounts of literature, images, personal accounts, and other data to create a visualized perspective of the Holocaust. The authors recognize their limitations in their work through the technology and their own interpretations as well as their “quantitative techniques to study human suffering” (Knowles et al., 2014:13). This may be difficult for some readers. Although it is a difficult topic to acknowledge, the authors, in my opinion, did a really great job of explaining their techniques and choices for each visualization, and I think it really helps to understand the events of the Holocaust in a new way.

In chapter 2 of the book, Knowles et al., (2014) looked at the spatial relationship of between the concentration camps, subcamps, and towns, as well as how these relationships changed over the period of the war. They also mapped gender at each camp (male, female, or mixed) and how that too changed over time, including the different labor occurring at each camp (construction vs. arms production). They employed sight line analysis to illustrate Euclidean distance between each camp and its subcamp. Interestingly, in some cases, subcamps were much closer to other camps than their associated camp. One particular subcamp (Kiev) was around 880 miles away from its camp (Sachsenhausen).

It is through the hard work of these collaborators utilizing their varied training to come together to compile an impressive interpretation of the Holocaust through visualization. It is one thing to learn about the concentration camps and the atrocities that occurred there – even seeing images of during and after, but seeing these maps creates a new layer of understanding the changing landscape of the SS camps and the Nazi controlled territories over time.

GIS is a fantastic tool for creating a visual illustration of events. The vast number of researchers coming together to discuss, debate, and reach a mutual interpretation of the sources they analyzed, helps to bring a certain credibility. It is not just one person who is interpreting these events and creating a map based on their own interpretation. It was a group of people with very different backgrounds coming together to create an incredible amount of visualizations through joint interpretations. GIS can be used in a number of different ways, which is evident in this book. They utilized charts, tables, graphs, and maps to tell the story in a different way. They used digital reconstructions and street maps to illustrate space and place. As the authors have pointed out their limitations of the technology and the decisions made for what to include and omit, I think they did a really great job of pulling the data together to show it from a different angle.

I think any topic that has to do with movement would benefit greatly from a GIS/spatial analysis approach. That could mean anything from historical mobility of people, modern migrations, spread of ancient or modern disease, tracking habitat patterns of various animals/insects/plants, etc. Even tracking the changes of shorelines and habitat due to climate change.

I think the authors are right on when they discuss that these interpretations are their own and may receive varied responses, especially when working with topics that have deep emotional connections, such as the Holocaust. Additionally, because something is mapped, does not necessarily mean that the people being discussed perceived space and place in the same way. So, we as scholars need to be mindful of projecting our own ideals and emotions on others. Other topics I have identified as being potentially benefited by using GIS methodologies also should take into consideration the local population. For example, if looking at climate change and how that is affecting local communities; their feelings may not be the same as a different community also facing similar climate change issues, so each project needs to beware not to extrapolate information onto others.   

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit!

-The Medieval Isotopist

Bibliography:

Knowles, A.K., Cole, T., & Giordano, A. (2014). Geographies of the Holocaust. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Knowles, A.K., Jaskot, P.B., Blackshear, B.P., De Groot, M., & Yule, A. (2014). Mapping the SS Concentration Camps. In: A.K. Knowles, T. Cole, & A. Giordano (Eds.), Geographies of the Holocaust (pp.19-50). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Historical GIS

Hello All!
Welcome back. This week's focus is on Historical GIS.

Historical GIS is situating history in its geographical context in ways to make it illuminate the past (Knowles, 2008:3), essentially incorporating the when with the where. Historical GIS takes qualitative, quantitative, and visual evidence and allows the researcher to create spatial relationships otherwise unseen.  

Teaching GIS helps students refine their problem-solving skills. As Knowles (2008) points out, students not only are faced with solving a problem, but also tasked with identifying that problem and articulating it. Additionally, GIS allows the user to create maps or add layers to imported maps as a means to understand space and place in an ever-changing environment, which provide another method to help support or debunk literary arguments. Teaching students how to use GIS enables them to learn how to create and organize files, build databases, write queries, and use graphics as a means of communication. While learning GIS is akin to learning another language – or at least adding another tool to your methodological tool belt, it is certainly a handy, transferable skill that can be useful in other facets of study and/or life. 

The ability to take geographical information from a multitude of textual sources and map it out for visual interpretation makes one scratch their heads as to why historians haven’t previously been congregating to the GIS bandwagon. One of the difficulties is a general lack of information. History is fraught with missing, contradictory, or otherwise seemingly ambiguous data. One problem I am beginning to see is that sometimes Historians take things at face value (Sorry Historians!) One such example is the Peutinger Map of the Roman World (Figure 1). The surviving copy is likely missing a segment or three and has been for a century or more believed to depict a, for a lack of a better adjective, pretty, “route diagram” (Knowles, 2008:200). However, after digitizing the map and analyzing the different layers, it is now believed to depict the actual geography surrounding these routes. Prior to utilizing digital software to analyze the map segments, the map was brushed off as a unique yet fairly typical route itinerary that was often seen in manuscripts. While this is not really an implication of GIS, it does show how something so simple as a map could be misunderstood for ages prior to GIS analysis.

Figure 1: Peutinger Map. Creative Commons 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication (CC0 1.0)

Due to minimally recorded and forgotten weather patterns prior to the 1930s, the Dust Bowl was assumed to have been caused by over farming and land mismanagement. However, mapping the involved counties of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico shed light on an assortment of complexities that lead to it. Researchers mapped annual rainfall, percent of counties turned to cropland, rainfall difference during drought periods, and locations of dust storms within the county areas. They also mapped newspaper descriptions of dust storm observations between 1854 to 1896 in Kansas. They found that while farming likely didn’t help the situation, dust storms had been happening fairly regularly in the region but were worse during periods of significant drought. The Dust Bowl was such an event because it was reported much more frequently than in the past and due to a decade long drought that made the situation worse (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Dust Storm in Texas, 1935. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

The point of the case studies to my initial argument about missing contextual information in history is that without zooming out to look at a larger picture, you only see bits and pieces of history – providing an interpretation of an even more incomplete picture.

I think my above case studies show how GIS can and is changing historical scholarship. Using these methods to look at historical text, imagery, etc. allows historians to ask different sets of questions, make new hypotheses, adding to debate and furthering the discipline. While GIS is not a perfect application for all historical needs, it does allow understanding of new perspectives and interpretations of historical events, place, and space.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

-The Migrant Isotopist

Knowles, K.A. (2008). Placing History. Redlands, California: ESRI Press.

Text-Mining and Topic-Mining

Hello all! Welcome back! 

This week I am talking about distance reading and text mining. 

Distance reading is looking broadly across articles or other documents and being able to pull out patterns. This approach would be extremely useful when you are beginning to start research and need to see the frequency of how terms are used or are trying to determine which synonyms are worthy of investigation. This can approach can also help navigate hidden tones and give the perceptions of the bias of the time. One example of this is looking back at reports during the US Civil War.

I thought Ayers (2011) New York Times article was really fascinating. As far as US history goes, the Civil War era is my favorite to read and learn about. He stated that using computer aided technology helps to gain a better understanding of the region from large amounts of sources. Utilizing these methods can elucidate alternative conclusions. In the Ayers (2011) article, he was able to identify a different “primary cause” of the Civil War. It is interesting that these computer-aided tools can help to uncover patterns that are otherwise difficult to see.

Another interesting way to dig through a lot of information is by text mining. Text mining looks at the frequency of words or topics in a certain period of time. Ewing et al., (2014) provide an excellent example in their article on the flu epidemic. They used two text-mining methods: topic modeling and tone classification. Through their work they were able to uncover how often different words were used in reports during different stretches of time within the local community and outside of it. They also looked at the tone of newspaper reports about the flu. Ewing et al., (2014) developed four classifications: alarmist, warning, reassuring, and explanatory. This was created to determine how the tone in reporting prompted public health intervention. Through this exercise, they were able to see the tone shift in reporting from the beginning of the epidemic to the end.    

After reading these articles and beginning to understand their use, I wanted to see how I could employ these methods for my own research. I attempted to use three difference tools, Google Ngram, Voyant, and JStor Data for Research. While playing around with Google Ngram and Voyant was fun, I was unable to figure out how to utilize JStor Data for Research. This is more likely an issue on my end than with the tool itself.

The Google Ngram Viewer is a pretty cool tool. As a test, I used the phrases Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel. Then I viewed the differences of the phrases between the corpus of American English, British English, French, and German. This was interesting that there would be such a difference (as seen below). 

Then I wanted to see the results of terms I would use in my own research, so I included peasant, Christian, and religion. Again, I used English, French, and German. The reason for this is that information regarding my research is not likely to be found in English, but rather French or German, so, I wanted to see if there were changes and if I could reveal anything about them (see below). I wonder how searching in the French or German language would change the results.

Voyant provides a really cool visual of the most often words used in a document. For this example, I used my Master’s thesis to create a word cloud with the top 55 words (see below). While these tools are undoubtably useful (and pretty interesting), I am not sure how useful they would be to my own research, but it is definitely worth investigating!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

-The Migrant Isotopist 

Articles I included in case you want to check them out for yourself:

Ayers (2011) https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/the-causes-of-the-civil-war-2-0/?_r=0

Ewing et al. (2014) https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2014/mining-coverage-of-the-flu-big-datas-insights-into-an-epidemic

Website links to the tools I used if you want to play around with it (warning, it can be addicting):

https://voyant-tools.org/

https://books.google.com/ngrams

What is Digital History? A response.

Hello all! 

Welcome back! This week I am responding to a variety of questions surrounding digital history, digital humanities, and basically how to move digital history forward. 

What is digital history?

Digital history uses technology and the internet to disseminate historical information. Historical documents, images, etc., represented in a digital space. Seefeldt and Thomas (2009) discuss how the concept of digital history broadly encompasses the examination and representation of the past through the new technologies of the computer, internet, and software. It seems that digital history can be defined loosely as anything historical that has been in some way altered in a digital way. Altering can include a scan of a document to upload onto a computer.

How does 21^st century digital history theory/practice differ from earlier applications of computer technology to historical research, such as the data-driven quantitative history (cliometrics) of the 1970s?

Cliometrics is the quantitative analysis of history. Thomas (2004) explained that in the past (mostly the 1970s), some historians jumped on the quantitative band wagon; however, they mostly only looked at their datasets to explain events rather than including any external information or additional historical evidence. Today, quantitative methods are used as a supplement to historical data and as a support tool to defend arguments or explain hypotheses.  

How does digital history differ from digital humanities?

The digital humanities and digital history are similar but have differences. Robertson (2016) uses the analogies of a tent and a room in a house to discuss the differences. Digital humanities, he argues, has become a sort of catch all under what he calls, a big tent. Digital humanists work often in collaboration with one another. Robertson (2016) stated that jobs, conferences, and coursework all include some degree of proficiency in digital technology. The author believes that instead of the catch all digital technology tent, it should be more like a house, with rooms specializing in certain areas. Enter, digital history. Historians are increasingly utilizing various technological tools available to explore historical data and events. Tools like mapping (e.g. GIS), text analysis, image analysis, 3D modeling, and the evermore importance of social media and the internet, have been quite useful for historians and history projects. However, with an assortment of tools at their fingertips, historians still do not fully utilize what is available. Which is funny, considering how going digital would greatly benefit historians. Ayers (1999) believed that history was best suited for the digital world as it could connect to larger and more diverse audiences. From a research standpoint, having more eyes on a topic from different perspectives/lenses would allow a better understanding of an event/period in time.   

What are the promises/perils of doing digital history?

Cohen and Rosenzweig (2006) discussed that the advantages are that we can do more. People have increased access to history. More information can be stored. However, Ayers (1999) suggested that digital archives create opportunities and problems. I think what he was trying to point out was that even though it is useful to have information stored in a database, easily accessible, that it is even easier then to have the opportunity to miss connections. The past is complicated, complex, filled with layers. However, I think he believed that it would be more difficult to see these complex nuances with so much information to riffle through. Cohen and Rosenzweig (2006) believed that problems also included issues surrounding authenticity and quality of information. They illustrated that movement of forgery is easier online. They provided an image that had been forged well before the introduction of the World Wide Web. Even then, it was easy to create a forgery; however, with the internet, forgeries and false information can be found easily among legitimate sources. They used the Google search as a means of searching for information and finding both real and false information within the search results. Although they make an excellent point that false information is widely distributed and it is difficult to police it, I think one way that this issue can be combatted is through education. By teaching students how to search for information and what sources are credible/how to look for credible sources, can help to curb the spread.

Can we make digital history, as a field, more inclusive?

I believe, yes, it can be more inclusive. However, like Leon (2017) and Brennan (2019) suggest, historians need to include and illuminate the work of women and people of color. Not only that but also working to understand the role of underrepresented populations in history, rather than just trying to beat the privileged white male point-of-view to death. History is the interwoven workings of all people, and all people have a story. This intertwining is what needs to be unraveled in order to understand a topic more holistically. In order for this to be done, it needs to be studied under different lenses, which only diversity can provide

If anyone would like to have a discussion on anything I discussed, please send me feedback and I'll be have to have an intelligent debate. 😊

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

-The Migrant Isotopist

The Digital Humanities: My Reflection

Hello reader(s)!

This is my first post on my blog (sorry in advance! 😬). This entry is devoted as a reflection of the book:  The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars. By: Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto.

The authors discuss the evolution of written text. The first “humanists” focused on the revival of grammar and rhetoric from the “pure” era rather than their “corrupt” years during what we now call the Medieval period. Reviewing ancient Greek and Latin texts, these humanists deciphered, edited, and disseminated printed works throughout Europe.  It is through the Medieval libraries where we begin to see the beginnings of the “modern” library. Libraries of the 20^th century eventually moved away from card catalogs and microfiche and into the digital age. Materials that have been digitized are objects, artifacts, images, sounds, and spaces. Those in charge of deciding what materials were initially important enough and selected for digitizing was up to the librarians and archivists.

This leads me to the main question I had throughout the book. Who had/has access to materials? Many of these digital goods are often behind paywalls. True, there are (now) plenty of open source digital media available on the internet, but in the early digital days, lots of information was available to those who could pay for it. Let’s take this accessibility issue one step further. Since the Medieval period, texts were translated in and from Greek and Latin. Meaning that only people who could read Latin/Greek/whatever local language materials were translated in, had access. Today, there is a lot of information that is translated into English; however, not everyone can read English, or the materials in the original language.

Let me get side-tracked to put this in relatable terms. We all know what Wikipedia is. We can’t Google something without seeing something pop up from Wikipedia. But who has access to the information from Wikipedia? In one of my master’s courses, we learned a lot about Wikipedia, and one thing I learned was that not everyone has the same access to information as everyone else. When I looked at a Wikipedia page, I would often find myself looking to see what languages that page was translated to. Sometimes very little existed to people in other languages. Other times, very little existed to English speakers (Take examples of the Ba’ja page and the Normandy page as contrasting examples of the amount of information available to people).

Getting back to the book, let me talk a moment about the benefits of access. The authors state that museums, who initially put their digitized collections behind a paywall, have found that providing access to digital information online has helped broaden the study of objects, artifacts, images, sounds, and spaces. As technology continues to improve, editing has become close to a true representation, allowing individuals who cannot physically go see the item in person, a chance to study it online. Having the ability to manipulate images allows people to view materials in ways they might not be allowed to by visiting the museum (as you typically cannot touch the artifacts 🤷).

Moving on, another thing I thought about during my reading was the costs associated with digitizing materials and storage. It costs time and money to scan texts, images, etc. It costs money to maintain the websites and the servers that hold these collections. Going forward, how will people work to keep up with the advancement of technology and these storage issues?

The book “The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars” was an interesting and thought provoking read, as you can see from my rant above. The book talked about more than just access and storage, but this is what I chose to focus on for this first posting.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit!

-The Migrant Isotopist