ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORICAL ECOLOGY: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATABASE OF THE LONGWOOD ERC PROJECT

Several archaeological databases containing information on sites and finds in geographical space have been created in the Czech Republic since the 1990s. Due to partial decentralisation, the most prominent example the Archaeological Database of Bohemia was spatially restricted to the western part of the Czech Republic. Moravia and the Czech parts of Silesia lacked a comparable database of archaeological sites with reliable coverage. The main aim of the LONGWOOD ERC project (2012-2016) was to create a model of long-term woodland dynamics including the influence of human society for Moravia and Czech Silesia. This could only be achieved through the quantified modelling of human-environmental relationships based on digital databases created for research purposes. We created our own archaeological database covering the whole area of interest (26,804 km(2)). Excavation and survey reports stored in the Archive of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno were the main source of information. As of 31 August 2016, the database consists of more than 19,000 archaeological components from more than 7000 sites located in 1685 parishes. Basic quantifications regarding research history, functional, chronological and spatial differences are presented and discussed in this paper.