Abstract

One of the greatest challenges in archaeological predictive modeling is moving beyond the 'usual suspects' of environmental predictor variables. I have argued elsewhere for the importance of incorporating either traditional land-use data or habitat suitability as a source of data for predictive modeling. However, both of these types of data can prove problematic in their acquisition. Increasingly in Canada, First Nations are mapping their traditional territories, as part of the Treaty Land Entitlement process. I believe that the place names collected in these exercises provide a potentially rich source of data for archaeological predictive modeling. However, in order to incorporate these data, a robust conceptual model must be devised. In this paper, I present the beginnings of the concept and design of a conceptual model for the incorporation of Aboriginal place names. Particularly this paper identifies a number of issues with using place name data.