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.