Abstract

Predictive modelling is becoming a major tool used by land managers and First Nations to help determine the appropriate scope of archaeological impact assessment work for proposed developments. Millennia Research Limited has been at the forefront of utilizing GIS to obtain 1:20,000 scale maps that are much more accurate and precise than previous models. Ethnohistoric data has two principal uses in predictive modelling. First, ethnographic and ethnohistoric data regarding land and resource use, seasonal movements, and so on, can help build general models of likely associations between archaeological sites and mapped variables. Secondly,ethnohistoric data (especially traditional use information on resource extraction and habitation sites) can be used as a mapped dataset, which directly contributes to archaeological prediction models. This type of data is used to provide general areas of higher site potential, which is further modified by topographic, vegetation, hydrographic, geological and other variables.