1. “There’s an App for that”: How can smartphones
improve the ergonomics of landscape study, analysis
and interpretation?
A Landscape Archaeology, GIS and Virtual Environments Masters Dissertation
By Lawrence Shaw
University of Birmingham
2. Introduction
Quick
Response Landscape
Codes Archaeology
Apple iOS
Stonehenge
Applications
Archaeology
Smartphones
Data Service
3. Landscape Theory
First Space Thinking: Second Space Thinking: Third Space Thinking:
‘‘All one really needs to “A theoretical school that “Aims to critically, but
understand what one is provides conceptualisation sympathetically, deconstruct
looking at when one of space and and reconstruct First and
ventures into the landscapes, looking at Secondspace thinking to an
countryside is a aspects such as spatiality in ontology associated with
countryman’s eye and a mental or cognitive forms.” historicality, sociality and
good par of boots.” spatiality.’”
(Hoskins, 1988) (Exon et al, 2000). (Soja, 1996).
4. The ADS and Stonehenge
• Over 880,000 visitors just at • 38.6 square kilometer around the Over a period of 7 days in April 2011,
Stonehenge in 2008 World Heritage Site. the ADS saw 527,484 successful
• 100,000 increase every 10 years • Over 1900 records recorded within requests for data from across the
the study area held by the ADS. globe, with 67.04 gigabytes being
downloaded
7. Aims and Objectives
Aim:
• Test the utility of smartphones in assisting non-specialists to interpret and
explore an archaeological landscape.
Objectives:
• Develop a user friendly and informative heritage based application for the
Stonehenge landscape from data provided by the ADS. Based on those
produced by the National Trust and English Heritage, this will have a map-
based interface, with information pins identifying monuments and as well as
providing information on the users location. From this it will be assessed if the
application could aid one or more of the different schools of thinking put
forward by Soja.
• Create a number of QR Codes for monuments found within the Stonehenge
landscape. These will direct users to a pre-made web page hosting monument
descriptions as provided by the ADS and appropriate photographs. From this it
will be assessed if the codes could aid one or more of the different schools of
thinking put forward by Soja.
• Assess whether smartphones provide an adequate platform for interpreting
and understanding a landscape.
8. Methodology - Application
Information pins and clustering
Mapping and satellite imagery
Flow diagram identifying the different outputs and
and user location
inputs for this projects application.
12. QR Code Hits
QR Code Table of Results
Period of Data 17/07/2011 -
collection: 01/08/2011
Number of Unique
Visitors: 37
Individual Monument Hits Most Visiting Most Used Operating
Countries Systems
Monuments Number of hits Country Number of hits Operating System Number of hits
Stonehenge 16 United Kingdom 25 iPhone OS 29
Woodhenge 4 United States 6 Unknown 3
The Avenue 4 Germany 2 Android 3
Cursus Barrow Group 3 European Union 2 Symbian OS 1
Durrington Walls 3 Netherlands 2 Windows 1
The Greater Cursus 3
Bush Barrow 2
The Cuckoo Stone 1
King Barrow Ridge 1
16. Discussion
Applications and landscape archaeology
• One way / closed
discussion
• Standard
archaeological text
creates a closure on
the subject and any
debate shuts down.
• Stay in one place
• Is this true when used
in the field?
• Secondspace
Thinking?
17. Discussion
QR codes and landscape archaeology
• Two way discussion
• Muddy Boots
• Standard
archaeological text
creates a closure on
the subject and any
debate shuts down.
• Firstspace Thinking?
‘By writing and illustrating the past, this data is not a simply transparent, neutral and value free vehicle for
transmitting information or ‘facts’ for others to passively consume. Rather they are creative and
empowering acts that actively produce rather than simply transmit what we call the past between writer
and readers.’ (Bender et all, 2007).
How the idea came to be;Always had a strong interest in landscape archaeology, work on a number of project at Stonehenge and been a bit of a techy geeky. In 2010 I got my first iPhone. Like most of you here I image I fell in love with its usability and functionality and was always looking at ways in which it could improve my my day to day life as well as my interests. After seeing apps such as those produced by NT and EH I wondered why nothing had been produced by the ADS that aided in disseminating their vast data sets. Having plaid with the NT and EH apps I realised that they helped to shape my understanding and interpretations of their sites and monuments. In 2011 I started my landscape archaeology, gis and virtual environments masters at the university of Birmingham. Here I floated the idea of creating an apple ios application using ADS data to assess smartphones influences in landscape study, analysis and interpretation.
Cosgrove (1984) descries landscape as a ‘cultural image, a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surrounding . . . Landscape is a social and cultural product, a way of seeing projected onto the land and having its own techniques and compositional forms’. The interpretation and understanding of landscapes has been of interest to wide range of people from archaeologists, pre-historians, anthropologists, geologists, geographers, historians, and others (Johnson, 2007). It is generally considered that there are two ways of looking at archaeological landscapes, the first of which is a generalising statement of humankind. This theory based analysis of landscapes looks at the large picture and focuses heavily on prehistory. Alternatively, the second view shows a ‘curiosity of what is in one’s own back yard’ (Johnson, 2007). This does not look to identify a general sweep of history but is more interested in the ‘fields around you’. Johnson also refers to Hoskins view that ‘all one really needs to understand what one is looking at when one ventures into the countryside is a countryman’s eye and a good par of boots.’ (Hoskins, 1988). The production of an informative application identifying features and monuments in and around the Stonehenge landscape may provide a tool for both these styles of thinking. s well as the two schools of theoretical thinking previously mentioned, Edward Soja, an American urban geographer, also identifies a third (Soja 1996). This project will be drawing from Soja’s interpretation of each of these schools, which are described as follows; Firstspace thinking focuses on local landscape experiences, understandings and interpretations such as phenomenology. Contrasting this, Secondspace thinking is a theoretical school that provides conceptualisation of space and landscapes, looking at aspects such as spatiality in mental or cognitive forms (Exon et al, 2000). Soja identifies that Secondspace thinking has been dominant within recent years, and also identifies the issues that both schools of thinking have in incorporating each other. Thirdspace thinking ‘aims to critically, but sympathetically, deconstruct and reconstruct First and Secondspace thinking to an ontology associated with historicality, sociality and spatiality.’ (Soja, 1996). This school of thinking is in relation to, but not opposition to, the current spatial duality and seeks to open new positions not offered by First and Secondspace thinking (Exon et al, 2000). The interpretations of landscapes as seen in Thirdspace terms will be real (Firstspace), imagined (Secondspace) and more. This project may prove an innovative research tool for this school of thinking, providing the ‘real’ to assist the ‘imagined’ through the use of emerging technologies.
The service receives over one million hits via it’s web site every month and provides information on: text reports, databases (related to excavated contexts or artefacts), images (including aerial photographs, remote sensing imagery, photographs of sites, features and artefacts), digitised maps and plans, numerical datasets related to topographical and sub-surface surveys and other locational data, as well as reconstruction drawings (Archaeology Data Service, b. 2011). Reliant on data provided by research and commercial heritage projects, the service provides a central location for all heritage based data to be stored. Over a period of 7 days in April 2011, the ADS saw 527,484 successful requests for data from across the globe, with 67.04 gigabytes being downloaded (Archaeology Data Service, c. 2011). This hugely popular and rich resource of heritage data is clearly well used across the globe and provides detailed and useful information for personal, professional and academic research. The Stonehenge World Heritage site will be used as a case study for this research project. Located on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire (Figure 5, NGR 4117 1420), Stonehenge became a World Heritage Site in 1986 for its outstanding pre-historic monuments dating between 3,700 to 1,600 BC (English Heritage, 2011). This pre-historic landscape covers around 2,600 hectares and contains a wealth of archaeological remains, resulting in the vast amount of research that has been undertaken within it. The ADS ArchSearch database holds around 1900 individual records for features and events found within this survey area alone. In 2008, Stonehenge saw 887,000 visitors go through its gates (English Heritage, 2008). This number has grown by 100,000 every ten years since 1990 and does not include the people that visit the area without actually going inside Stonehenge its self. As one of the world’s most iconic heritage sites and one of the most visited World Heritage Site in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is the ideal case study for this research project. Having already seen how widely Apple iPhones and the App Store are used across the globe, a heritage based application and a number of QR codes for the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, which drawing from the vast data set available within the ADS, could potentially be used by tens if not hundreds of thousands of people visiting the World Heritage Site each year. This project will be focusing on a 38.6 square kilometer box around the world heritage site with over 1900 records found within it.
The use of mobile phones to interact with applications, or apps for short, has really taken off since 2007 with the introduction of the Apple iPhone. To date the Apple App Store is the worlds largest app market with over 350,000 different applications available to download. Increased computing power, plenty of memory and the ability to use wireless connections have allowed mobile devices to undertake tasks with great easeand the continued development of new hardware and software only makes this easier. The production of a user friendly, intuitive developing software by Apple has also helped to fuel the growing app market, making it fairly easy for inexperienced developers to try their hand at developing their own application. Such applications were only supported by personal computers until recently. The first heritage based application was produced in 2009 by Antenna Audio Inc. for the Van Gogh Museum (Carillo et al, 2010). Two of the leading heritage based apps in the UK are created buy the National Trust and English Heritage. These map based applications provide an interactive gazetteer of the two organisation’s sites and monuments (Figures 1 - 2). Mobile GPS system also allows the users to identify where they are in comparison to these sites, and the apps also provide detailed information about each site. The two key aims of these applications were to increase visitor numbers to properties and to keep up with the mobile market within the heritage sector. With such a large app market and a growing user base, heritage based apps such as these help to provide an interactive and informative output for users to draw upon. The National Trust app alone has had over half a million downloads to date, and the newer English Heritage application is receiving 5000 downloads a month (Holly Wright, National Trust, Anne Wright, English Heritage Pers Com, 2011).
As well as interactive applications, smartphones also have the capability to draw information from a special type of bar codes known as Quick Response or QR Codes. These are two-dimensional barcode, and are readable by many mobile devices, with developments in recent years making these a useful tool for data dissemination (Weir, 2010). These codes can be used to direct the user to an array of different resources, from video and audio recordings, to websites and questionnaires, and are widely used today for an range of informative. QR Codes have also been acknowledged as a strong heritage tool by a number of different organisations. Visit England has recently announced the use of QR Codes to modernise the vistors’ information and experience. The scheme will be run at a number of locations across the UK, with the aim of inspiring visitors to spend more time in the area they are visiting, providing short video and audio clips about a location to the user (Visit England, 2011). Similarly, the Two Saints Way Project looks to use QR codes to inform individuals about a landscape whilst undertaking a number of different heritage walks. As well as the standard information, the project is also looking to include a wide range of interactive features such as presenting reconstructions of Saxon hill forts so that the user can take a virtual tour of a site (The Two Saints Way Project, 2011). Whilst these organisations are using the QR codes within their own closed environments, there are also services such as that seen on the Tale of Things web site, that actively encourage individuals to use their service in an interactive, two way discussion, between the developer and the users. Here, QR codes are produced for interactive web pages, previously constructed by the developer, and provide a multi dimensional functions such as Google Maps, text, images, videos, and discussion boards.
Develop a user friendly and informative heritage based application for the Stonehenge landscape from data provided by the ADS. Based on those produced by the National Trust and English Heritage, this will have a map- based interface, with information pins identifying monuments and as well as providing information on the users location. From this it will be assessed if the application could aid one or more of the different schools of thinking put forward by Soja. To do this the development was undertaken in the following stages.
The production of the QR codes for this project was relatively straightforward in comparison to the application development. This aspect of the project created individual QR codes for nine different monuments found around the Stonehenge landscape, including; Stonehenge, the Stonehenge Avenue, Bush Barrow, King Barrow Ridge, the Cursus Barrows, the Greater Cursus, Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and the Cuckoo Stone. Each monument was assigned a unique web page created in Word Press, with descriptions of the monuments taken from the Archaeology Data Service and photos provided by Aerial-Cam. The decision to create individual Word Press web pages for the QR Codes, as opposed to directing a user to the appropriate ADS web record, was made in an attempt to monitor the use of the QR Codes. The use of the Word Press plug in Counterize, allowed the administrator of the web site to monitor how many hits each individual web page has received, what type of device was used to view it and what nationality the device comes from (Figures 28 - 29). A four week period between 18th of July 2011 and the 14th August 2011 was chosen, to gain an insight into any trends that may occur. As well as this, the blog-style web pages allow users to interact with them by leaving comments and up loading photos of their experiences. There are, however, a number of issues associated with the use of QR codes within a landscape. The most prominent of these is access to an internet connection. If a smartphone does not have a connection to 3G or wireless internet, it will not be able to download the web pages it requires. Similarly if the connection is poor, the download will take a long time. The top five mobile service providers in the UK are; Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2 and T- Mobile. Figures 22 – 26 show the 3G mobile coverage for each of these providers found around the Stonehenge landscape. From this it is clear that this coverage varies massively, with some providers such as Orange having little to no coverage, whilst others, such as 3, providing substantial cover for the area.
Has the application helped you to interpret and understand the landscape any differently?It has provided me with a much bigger picture of the landscape rather than just focusing on my current location.Identified monuments that I previously didn’t know about and furthered my knowledge of the landscape.Yes, it has helped me to identify discreet monuments that I previously didn’t know about such as the Cuckoo StoneHas the application made you change the way in which you might move around the landscape?Yes, it has encouraged me to explore areas of new interest to me.Yes and it draws me away from the better known monuments.Yes, it stops you going straight to Stonehenge and makes you more aware of the surrounding landscape.
By using the two techniques developed in this project alongside each other, it would appear that these tools, which support both Firstspace and Secondspace thinking individually, can bring these two schools together to compliment each other. Although previously described as not being compatible with each other (Johnson, 2007), this project looks to disprove that idea and perhaps even falls into Soja’s idea of Thirdspace thinking by 'critically, but sympathetically, deconstruct and reconstruct First and Secondspace thinking to an ontology associated with historicality, sociality and spatiality' (Soja, 1996), through the use of smartphone technology.The multi-approach used in this project, through the use of two different smartphone technologies, seems to show that they are both affective methods of data dissemination to aid users with landscape interpretation and exploration. Informative tools such as that produced by the application in this project actively encourage individuals to put on their ‘muddy boots’ (Hoskins, 1988), and explore the landscape further, by showing the user where they are and, what is found around them, as well as providing mapping and satellite data. Additionally, the use of QR codes placed throughout a landscape may compliment this further by providing more detailed, informative and interactive information about individual sites and monuments. By using these techniques together, they seem to compliment each other enough to fit into Soja’s idea of Thirdspace thinking, through the use of mobile technology to draw from both First and Secondspace experiences and information (Soja, 1996). Within his work, Soja also recognises that geography is rich in landscape study and discussion, and looks to embrace modern technologies to further its understanding of landscapes. Perhaps, therefore, archaeological studies should follow in these footsteps, and look to use these and many other emerging techniques to help individuals understand and interpreter archaeological landscape.
