PREDICTING THE PAST: AN OVERVIEW OF SPATIAL ANALYSIS, DIGITAL DATA AND PREDICTIVE MODELING IN ARCHEOLOGY/PREVENDO O PASSADO: UM PANORAMA SOBRE AS ANALISES ESPACIAIS, OS DADOS DIGITAIS E A MODELAGEM PREDITIVA NA ARQUEOLOGIA

Spatial analysis is highlighted in archaeological research, as it is fundamental in understanding the contexts and defining areas of study in Archaeology. The accelerated advance in the development of information technologies made spatial studies a key element in the construction of archaeological thinking and brought with it the possibility of extracting a greater amount of information, either directly in field activities or in laboratory analyses. This gradual growth of spatial analysis brings with it a debate regarding the use of digital media in Archaeology, which need to be discussed seriously, after all, it is not Science's intention to create "button-pushers". For this, Digital Archaeology emerges to develop the theoretical-methodological bases of Archeology to deal with computational applications. This branch of the archeological sciences is also important for the discussion around digital data and the risks and benefits that these enable, so we will discuss here how to manage them. In addition, the importance of having open and unrestricted information will also be raised, enabling a greater exchange of knowledge among researchers, and boosting the advancement of Archaeology, especially in the digital context. With all the technological progress, which culminated in the current scenario of spatial analysis in Archaeology, platforms such as GIS have gained a major importance. The use of these tools, combined with heritage legislation used to safeguard archaeological remains in infrastructure projects, led to the development of predictive methods based on the search for patterns in the data, whose aim is to find archaeological sites. The so-called archaeological predictive models (APM) have been used all over the world and here we will make an overview of researches on this subject, seeking to enumerate its limitations, talk about possible implementations, as is the case of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has the aim of developing models that offer more reliable answers to the archaeologists.