Via POPSCI
By Rebecca Boyle
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"Spatial humanities," the future of history
Even using the most detailed sources, studying history often requires
a great imagination, so historians can visualize what the past looked
and felt like. Now, new computer-assisted data analysis can help them really see it.
Geographic Information Systems, which can analyze information related
to a physical location, are helping historians and geographers study
past landscapes like Gettysburg, reconstructing what Robert E. Lee would
have seen from Seminary Ridge. Researchers are studying the parched
farmlands of the 1930s Dust Bowl, and even reconstructing scenes from
Shakespeare’s 17th-century London.
But far from simply adding layers of complexity to historical study,
GIS-enhanced landscape analysis is leading to new findings, the New York Times
reports. Historians studying the Battle of Gettysburg have shed light
on the tactical decisions that led to the turning point in the Civil
War. And others examining records from the Dust Bowl era have found that
extensive and irresponsible land use was not necessarily to blame for
the disaster.
GIS has long been used by city planners who want to record changes to
the landscape over time. And interactive map technology like Google
Maps has led to several new discoveries. But by analyzing data that describes the physical attributes of a place, historians are finding answers to new questions.
Anne Kelly Knowles and colleagues at Middlebury College in Vermont
culled information from historical maps, military documents explaining
troop positions, and even paintings to reconstruct the Gettysburg
battlefield. The researchers were able to explain what Robert E. Lee
could and could not see from his vantage points at the Lutheran seminary
and on Seminary Hill. He probably could not see the Union forces
amassing on the eastern side of the battlefield, which helps explain
some of his tactical decisions, Knowles said.
Geoff Cunfer at the University of Saskatchewan studied a trove of
data from all 208 affected counties in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado,
Oklahoma and Kansas — annual precipitation reports, wind direction,
agricultural censuses and other data that would have been impossible to
sift through without the help of a computer. He learned dust storms were
common throughout the 19th century, and that areas that saw nary a
tiller blade suffered just as much.
The new data-mapping phenomenon is known as spatial humanities, the Times reports. Check out their story to find out how advanced technology is the future of history.
[New York Times]