Abstract

In February 1997, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) hosted a workshop that brought together a diverse group of archaeologists and professionals. The focus of this workshop was the use of predictive modelling as a resource management tool and the most appropriate way in which that tool could be used in a boreal forest environment. Discussions were topic specific and did not focus on the use of a specific computer technology. Although it was clear that GIS is an important tool for conducting predictive modelling, discussions did not focus on that technology. Rather discussions and presentations focussed on modelling issues. The technology was secondary. The result of this workshop was not a series of papers that trumpeted one's mastery of a particular analytical module in a specific GIS package. Rather it was about addressing archaeological predictive modelling: the types of data one should consider; the means by which one could verify a model (statistical as well as survey approaches); incorporating non-geographical data into models (social data); and the means by which one can take a model and apply it to the real world. GIS and technology figure into it, but are not the focus of it. This paper will summarize the results of that workshop and put it into the context of the MNR's archaeological predictive modelling program.