Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office
An archaeologist by training, Noël Strattan is currently the Coordinator for the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System.
Back in July 2019, I shared with you the news that our interns had added the information from “Indian Paths of Pennsylvania” by Paul Wallace (1965) into CRGIS. This data set is one of the most frequently requested of the data we show, so I thought I would come back and tell you how to access these in PA-SHARE.
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For the past several years, PA SHPO archaeologists have issued an annual report – known as the PASS Report – detailing the ongoing efforts to record Pennsylvania’s archaeological sites.
Despite 2020’s many challenges, over 280 new archaeological sites were recorded thanks to cultural resource management (CRM) projects and continued contributions from independent research projects, members of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology (SPA), and long-time avocational archaeologists.
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I grew up in Western Pennsylvania – mostly Somerset County. Everywhere around me there was evidence that we were not the first people to inhabit this land.
Continue readingRecently, you may have noticed a new data set was added to CRGIS and you may be wondering what it is. This new data set appears to be several crisscrossing and winding paths – and they are!
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We had a new release in CRGIS this week. Most of the changes were things that will just make it move more smoothly for you, but there are two things that we wanted to point out:
You can now see attachments to individual inventory items within districts.
In the past, all attachments were only visible on the main record for the district and it was impossible to tell which building they referenced. New attachments are now added at the inventory level. We have not (yet) gone back and moved older attachments, but those from our scanning efforts and all future ones will be linked at this level.
Attachment names must be unique!
Although our guidance asks you to name all attachments with a name that will be unique, we found that generic names are being used and files are being lost though overwriting. The system now checks for duplicate names and adds a (2) behind the name if it already exists in the file. Please do not change the attachment name in the table after you have uploaded it. The record in the database is a link to your file on the server. If you change the name, the link is broken. So… if you see that the system has added the (2), please do not change it. Following our naming protocols found in the Data Entry Manual will go a long way towards eliminating this issue and safeguarding your work.
Over the next several hours, CRGIS will have limited functionability will it is being updated with the new and improved changes. This new map viewer has been a long time coming, and I am happy to tell you that it will be here very soon! Continue reading
As we mentioned in our recent post about new archaeology guidelines, The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), and PHMC partnered with URS Corporation to develop a statewide pre-contact archaeological predictive model for Pennsylvania.
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ReGIS is 10!In Spring 2005 we launched the public version of the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS) website. The database search was named AskReGIS and this little guy was born (thank you Kathy Alsvary!). Since then hundreds of people have consulted him every day to find out what he knows about historic places in Pennsylvania. He has had a few face lifts over the years, and will continue to have work done, as he struggles to keep up with the times, but he remains on duty, helping us share the information we collect about our past. He is a little shy these days. Have you seen him peeking through his window? Continue reading
Have you ever been walking through the woods and wondered who walked here before you? Setting aside the 16,000 years of prehistory in Pennsylvania, it is amazing to me how much our use of the land has changed during the last 350 years. Much of Penn’s Woods has gone from woods to farms to industrial tracts and back to woods. But all those activities have left traces on the land – some blatant, some subtle. Being an archaeologist by training, I look for those traces when I walk in the woods. Continue reading
GISday is an international observance that is designed to make people aware of the possible uses of geographic information systems. Various events are held around the world to highlight GIS projects. Continue reading
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