GEOSPATIAL AND GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF FOUR SCOTTISH BRONZE AGE MEGALITHIC SITES

A comparison of four significant Bronze Age (2500 BCE-800 BCE) megalithic sites and settlements in Scotland: Cairnpapple Cairn, Callanish standing stones, Machrie Moor standing stones, and the Clava Cairns, demonstrates the value of geospatial data science.

Through the integration, and spatial analyses, of multiple data types, such as altimetry, geology, seismology, archaeoastronomy, soil classes, hydrography, archaeology, geochronology and geophysical surveys (of varying scales), patterns in spatial relationships between known sites, expansive settlements and potential locations of previously undiscovered places of interest are identified.