title: Environmental Suitability Modeling for Archaeological Features in Roman Northern Noricum (ca. 50 to 500 CE)
title: MaxEnt Data and Outputs
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Hagmann, Dominik
Publisher: name: Self-publishing
Year: 2024
Subjects: Virtuelle Archäologie
Virtual archeology
ÖFOS 2012 -- GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTEN (6) -- Geschichte, Archäologie (601) -- Geschichte, Archäologie (6010) -- Virtuelle Archäologie (601026)
ÖFOS 2012 -- HUMANITIES (6) -- History, Archaeology (601) -- History, Archaeology (6010) -- Virtual archeology (601026)
Archäologie
Archaeology
ÖFOS 2012 -- GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTEN (6) -- Geschichte, Archäologie (601) -- Geschichte, Archäologie (6010) -- Archäologie (601003)
ÖFOS 2012 -- HUMANITIES (6) -- History, Archaeology (601) -- History, Archaeology (6010) -- Archaeology (601003)
Suitability Map
Predictive Modeling
Roman Settlement
Maximum Entropy
Climate Change
Machine Learning

description: This open dataset facilitates spatial analyses and ensures methodological transparency in archaeological predictive modeling, with a focus on an Area of Interest in Roman northern Noricum (modern-day Lower Austria, Austria). It provides a robust framework for examining environmental and visibility factors influencing settlement patterns and site locations. The dataset documents both the inputs and outputs of ecological niche modeling applied to archaeological features, utilizing MaxEnt machine learning software (*).

Packaged as a .zip archive conforming to the BagIt specification (produced using Bagger software), the dataset is georeferenced in WGS84 (EPSG:4326) and includes:

1. Environmental Layers (**):
 - Environmental variables used for modeling (e.g., slope, elevation, visibility indices, and proximity to water).
 - Stored in ASCII grid format (`.asc`) along with metadata (`.aux.xml`, `.prj`).

2. Model Outputs:
 - Probability surfaces for habitat suitability (continuous values ranging 0–1).
 - Logistic thresholds to classify areas of high suitability.
 - Jackknife tests for variable importance and contributions.
 - Evaluation metrics including omission rates and ROC curves.

3. Plots:
 - Visual representations of model results (e.g., suitability maps, variable importance charts).
 - Stored as `.png` files with thumbnails for preview.

4. Tabular Data:
 - Sample predictions and average suitability scores for presence and absence data (`.csv`).
 - Lambda files indicating variable contributions to the model.

5. HTML Reports:
 - Automatically generated MaxEnt reports in `.html` format for each analyzed feature type.
 - These reports contain a summary of input data, modeling settings, evaluation results, and interpretation of key findings.

6. Log Files:
 - Detailed logs (`maxent.log`) for reproducibility and auditing of MaxEnt runs.

7. Feature-specific Data (***):
 - Individual archaeological feature types (e.g., settlements, funerary sites, fortifications) analyzed separately with corresponding plots, metrics, and HTML reports.
description: (*) Steven J. Phillips, Miroslav Dudík, Robert E. Schapire. [Internet] Maxent software for modeling species niches and distributions (Version 3.4.1). Available from URI: http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/maxent/

(**) Environmental data, including a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) with a resolution of 10×10 m, as well as data on watercourses and flooding areas, was derived as Open Government Data (OGD) from the States of Upper and Lower Austria, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism (as of 2020), and the Austrian Federal Environment Agency. These datasets are openly available at https://www.data.gv.at/

(***) The archaeological data was sourced from a newly compiled dataset tailored to the Area of Interest (AOI), encompassing 1,184 Roman-era features located at 551 findspots and clustered into 129 Roman sites. This dataset is openly available in the University of Vienna’s repository, PHAIDRA, at https://doi.org/10.25365/phaidra.386 - cf. Hagmann, D. (2024). Adopt, Adapt, and Share! FAIR Archeological Data for Studying Roman Rural Landscapes in Northern Noricum. Journal of Open Humanities Data, 10(13), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.129