From Mapping the Geography of Historical Events to Systematically Modeling Historical Information Systems

Over twenty years ago, mapping the geographies of the battlefields of the American Revolutionary War provided a glimpse into the possibilities for applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to historical research. These efforts inventoried archaeological features and relevant context to create detailed, almost forensic, point-in-time perspectives on the war’s battles. The rigor of compiling GIS datasets frequently led to new insights on these battles. The nature of the compilation process to produce these GIS databases and maps indicated the potential to be expanded in geographical scope. Such expansions necessarily incur expansions to the system of information needed to manage each historical feature. For example, the task of representing Colonial America at the outset of the American Revolutionary war in 1775 requires a deep understanding of the management of geographic information in the late eighteenth century. Maps during this period represented a much wider temporal range of information than maps today, which are expected to current at the time of publication. For example, the location of a fort that had been destroyed decades earlier typically appears as a locational reference, but without graphic distinction from a fort currently used at the time of the map’s printing. Forts are also instructive as they may be reconstructed, or their owners may change. Thus, representing a large geographical area of historical information using GIS requires the independent research of every feature to represent its duration. Additionally, if such a scope is useful for one point in time, then it is likely to be useful for several adjacent points in time – for instance, one map of Colonial America during the American Revolution, would benefit from the ability to represent the many changes in treaties and territories of the new U.S. States and adjacent lands, annually beginning in 1775.