Abstract
The invention of radiocarbon dating transformed how time was approached by archaeology. It has been argued that the adoption of geospatial technology – e.g., GIS, high-definition remote sensing, laser scanning – has had equally important consequences constituting a geospatial revolution in archaeology. In contrast to the radiocarbon revolution, which turned on the development of a single technology, the geospatial revolution involves a suite of different innovations, and as such, remains poorly defined. In this paper I present a meta-analysis of more than 11,000 literature references to better define precisely when, where, and how these technologies have been applied, and, to a limited degree, explore with text mining tools trends in topics discussed. Results suggest that after an experimental period in the 1990s, there was a rapid uptake of geospatial technology beginning around 2005. While the geospatial revolution has impacted archaeology on a global scale there appears to be a consistent, and concerning, geographic bias toward studies centered on Europe. Today, the proportion of the archaeological literature concerning some aspect of geospatial technology is equal to radiocarbon and is on track to continue to grow.
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