Towards Handling Uncertainty of Excavation Data into a GIS

Research on data quality through the analysis of accuracy and uncertainty has become a major development in GIS science. Fisher’s taxonomy provides solutions for the processing of uncertainty in spatial data representation. However, excavation data differs from geographical data, owing to the specific features of archeology such as incompleteness, temporal and functional aspects. Therefore, archaeological excavation representation requires a GIS tool accounting for its specific needs. This article presents a new taxonomy taking into account the specificity of excavation representation. The authors examine the major theories dealing with the representation of uncertain data, and their use. Finally, they explore the relevance of this taxonomy to knowledge representation in a GIS, and analyze the impact of uncertainty representations according to time and to the shapes of objects in Reims Roman streets.