Karimali, E., "Designing a 3-layered data base for modeling lithic distribution: The example of the Aegean", Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA 2002), 2-6 April.

Recent trends in distribution modelling of lithic material call out for the need of comparing inter-site procurement and production strategies at micro-regional and micro-temporal scales, taking into account the local peculiarities of physical topography (i.e., geo-morphological relief, proximity to water etc.). This demands the handling of a large amount of lithic data, to be analysed in a regionally scaled, comparative framework. A relational, 3-layered database was designed for facilitating the management of a potentially expanding regional corpus of lithic data. By combining site-contextual and object-contextual information, as well as technologically-oriented object description (based on the principles of the ‘chaine operatoire’ approach), the data base aims at providing a dynamic interface for testing future models of lithic distribution. The data base is also planned to constitute the input of a Geographical Information System, taking into account the geo-morphological characteristics of the region of interest.