GIS stands for Geographic Information System and I would like to start this article by quoting the words of Wheatley & Gillings, (2002: 2)

"...archaeologists who wish to understand GIS have been faced with a number of options, none of them particularly satisfactory or convenient. They could read introductory texts derived from other fields or disciplines, such as soil science or economic geography. Alternatively, the curious could be directed towards the proprietary manual accompanying a given piece of software and then decide how best to translate this information into a specific archaeological context. Although some manuals are excellent, this leaves the archaeologist to fashion an application of GIS that is sensitive to the unique requirements of the discipline, in the process adding an extra burden to the already non-trivial task of getting to grips a complex technology."

It is the branch of archaeology which deals with the analysis and techniques of the archaeological approach. The recent history of archaeology suggests that the field has been increasingly moving towards professionalism and an ever increasing number of tools and techniques to use with the intention of get as much information as possible on a site that is examined. The tools made available through GIS help in data collection, its storage and retrieval, its manipulation for customized circumstances and, finally, the display of the data so that it is visually comprehensible by the user. The most important aspect of GIS in archaeology lies, however, not in its use as a pure map-making tool, but in its capability to merge and analyze different types of data in order to create new information.

There is no one single theory of archaeology and any attempts to define the field has been unsuccessful because of disputes regarding their accuracy and relevance. During the middle of the twentieth century archaeology was thought to be closely tied to anthropology and history.