https://people.cas.sc.edu/ajames/Research/Pubs/12%20James%20et%20al.%20Cartometrics%20%26%20DEM%20diff.pdf

Geomorphic change detection using historic maps and DEM differencing: The temporal dimension of geospatial analysis

This paper describes a methodology for evaluating the planimetric accuracy of three US Civil War maps using GIS and spatial analytical techniques. The case-study is the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee and, in particular, maps depicting the events of December 31, 1862. An examination of the objectives, limitations and techniques employed by the topographer engineers who created the maps provides focus for the quantitative analysis and establishes the historical context needed to understand how and why the maps were constructed. The paper shows how GIS and spatial analysis can be utilized to document vanishing historic landscapes and reconstructing where certain historical events took place.

Civil War Maps of the Battle of Stones River: History and the Modern Landscape

The Italian city of Milan provides a fascinating laboratory for disentangling the historical layers that structure the spatial layout of a European city. In the last 250 years, the temporal span of this study, Milan has played a key role in Italy's industrialization and as its gateway to the centres of economic and cultural modernization in Western Europe. This article proposes a spatial analytical methodology that incorporates geovisualization techniques to discover and map urban change in Milan. Using historical maps dating back to the eighteenth century and a 2005 official city map, we applied methods of spatial analysis and geovisualization techniques to determine which parts of the city changed the most in the time interval considered. We then drew parallels between urban changes and political changes in the history of the city. Urban change is defined here as a change in the form and structure of the city (new buildings, new or widened roads, new squares, etc.). Results indicate that morpho...

Using Spatial Analysis and Geovisualization to Reveal Urban Changes: Milan, Italy, 1737–2005

This study compares the accuracy of four maps available to Union and Confederate officers during the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign of the American Civil War. It examines historical maps of the Valley of Virginia by the following cartographers: James W. Abert, Hermann Boye and Lewis von Buchholtz, Jedediah Hotchkiss, and Franz Kappner. Both simple and three-tiered sinuosity measures are derived for reference points along study map representations of the Shenandoah river system. These data are then statistically compared to corresponding sinuosity data from USGS topographic quadrangles to identify the relative accuracies of the historical maps. This article offers evidence to refute the common historical assumption that Hotchkiss provided Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson with terrain intelligence that was far superior to that available to his Union opponents. Evidence indicates that maps by Union cartographers as well as the prewar Boye-Buchholtz map were at least as accurate, or superior to,...

Comparative Accuracy in Four Civil War Maps of the Shenandoah Valley: A GIS Analysis*

This paper explores the application of geographic information systems (GIS) in the evaluation of the accuracy of early maps through a case study of The Map of the Prefectural Capital of 1261. The evaluation of the accuracy of early maps is an important aspect of the study of the history of cartography, but no standard methodology has been generally accepted. The purpose of this paper is to assess the positional accuracy and the relative relations of the spatial objects on The Map of the Prefectural Capital using GIS. The procedure of the study includes identification of locations of the points and features of The Map of the Prefectural Capital on a modern base map, digitization of the early map and the modern base map, overlays of the digitized early map and modern base map, and an analysis of the absolute and relative distortion of the early map. The results of the analysis show that The Map of the Prefectural Capital of 1261 is reasonably accurate considering the technical ability of the thirteenth cent...

Assessing the Accuracy of The Map of the Prefectural Capital of 1261 Using Geographic Information Systems

The accuracy with which transient patterns are portrayed on historic maps cannot be directly checked cartometrically. When historical geographers wish to study such patterns other methods, inevitably subjective, must be used. This paper examines the value of one such method, the transfer of information to standardised base maps, and evaluates the degree of agreement among patterns produced by participants in a transfer project. It is concluded that the method has limited practical value, but that the study throws light on the importance of visual cues in the assessment of historic maps.

James M. Lindsay

Papers

The Assessment of Transient Patterns on Historic Maps — A Case Study