How to build an input file for Binford's frames of reference from existing data sources

Summary

This poster demonstrates how to build an input file to calculate Binford’s environmental and hunter-gatherer frames of reference using available global data standards and GIS technology. Required input values include latitude, longitude, elevation, distance to the nearest coast in km, soil type, vegetation type, and mean monthly values of temperature and rainfall. All of these data are freely available in global standard data sets (WORLDCLIM: Hijmans et al 2005, World Wildlife Foundation Habitat Types: Olson et al. 2001, Soil Types: FAO-UNESCO 2005 Soil Map, Coast distance: NOAA/NASA 2009) for use as raster files in GIS . Integrating these data with locations of interest through GIS serves to 1) standardize the input data compared to collecting locally available weather station data, 2) eliminate the problem of missing data in some regions, and 3) automize the process of building an input file, making it as easy to compile data for hundreds or thousands of locations as it is for only a few locations. The resulting input file structure can be run through the EnvCalc 2.1 program to calculate Binford’s frames of reference so researchers anywhere in the world could use these variables to leverage learning from the archaeological and ethnoarchaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Archaeological Analysis Using Binford’s Environmental and Ethnographic Frames of Reference

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