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