Conclusion

Refering back to the conceptual outline, the goal was to judge the suitability of using GIS for the investigation of the effects of tsunamis on ancient coastal societies in Alaska.  This was to be performed by modeling areas affected by tsunamis and attempting to verify them using the archeological data.  Despite the coarseness of the data the model appeared to work fairly well.

Dierdre Dobson's approach to analyzing the data is to examine the frequency of tsunami activity, and the impacts on each site by looking for layers of sand preceeded, and followed, by evidence of cultural activity.  Her set of data is for the entire southern coast of Alaska.  This could be aided by a GIS tool for organizing the data, performing database queries, presenting the results visually, and looking for patterns based on the database queries.  The models developed here wouldn't necessarily be useful in this regard, but may aid in limiting areas to look for new research sites, or to pick out sites probably affected by tsunami activity.
 

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