Papers by Maria Elena Castiello
The first Neolithic farmers arrived in the Western Mediterranean area from the East. They establi... more The first Neolithic farmers arrived in the Western Mediterranean area from the East. They established settlements in coastal areas and over time migrated to new environments, adapting to changing ecological and climatic conditions. While farming practices and settlements in the Western Mediterranean differ greatly from those known in the Eastern Mediterranean and central Europe, the extent to which these differences are connected to the local environment and climate is unclear. Here, we tackle this question by compiling data and proxies at a superregional and multi-scale level, including archaeobotanical information, radiocarbon dates and paleoclimatic models, then applying a machine learning approach to investigate the impact of ecological and climatic constraints on the first Neolithic humans and crops. This approach facilitates calculating the pace of spread of farming in the Western Mediterranean area, modelling and estimating the potential areas suitable for settlement location, and discriminating distinct types of crop cultivation under changing climatic conditions that characterized the period 5900 -2300 cal. BC. The results of this study shed light onto the past climate variability and its influence on human distribution in the Western Mediterranean area, but also discriminate sensitive parameters for successful agricultural practices. The spread of early farmers from SW Asia towards Western Europe is a testament to the capacity of Neolithic farmers to succeed in many different environments, substrates and climatic regions. This success is possible partly thanks to the large variety of crops available at the beginning of this process, the intensive (garden-plot-type) and mixed (closely integrated with animal management) nature of farming 1 , but also the important role of wild plants in the diet 2-4 . There is abundant literature reviewing how the spread of these populations was only possible by focusing on the crops better adapted to the new climatic conditions 5-8 . However, so far no research has quantitatively assessed the ecological niche of these crops in the past, and the degree to which these farming communities and the crops they cultivated were constrained by or adapted to climate change events that potentially happened during the Neolithic period (between 5900 and 2300 cal. BC) . The North-west Mediterranean region and the western Alpine Foreland (current Switzerland) is one of the best-investigated areas regarding settlement patterns and agricultural practices in the Western Mediterranean and also one of the regions that have seen a greater improvement of the datasets in recent times. In comparison to central Europe, the area is less intensively known 10 , particularly for the Early Neolithic (5900-4500 BC, our Phase 01 and Phase 02), but sites are well radiocarbon dated, partly due to the establishment of radiocarbon dates as proxies to understand the Neolithisation process and partly
Pages Magazines, 2023
Collection of 150 questions by ECRs Original questions grouped in 3 categories ECRs Past Socio-En... more Collection of 150 questions by ECRs Original questions grouped in 3 categories ECRs Past Socio-Environmental Systems Workshop Identify and discuss challenges and opportunities for the interdisciplinary ECR paleoscientists Focus sessions Discussion: Interdisciplinary communication in paleoscience Research Funding Outreach Funding agencies Journals General public Communities Policymakers Scientist Colleagues Journals
Past Global Changes Magazine, May 1, 2019
Recent advances in computer and environmental science, climate modelling and other disciplines as... more Recent advances in computer and environmental science, climate modelling and other disciplines as well as the availability and processability of (openly shared) big data have triggered fundamental changes in research over the last decades and expanded the toolbox of archaeological methods. While traditional methods (i.e. typochronology, mapping sites) remain important and continue to be used to study material culture complexes and past human societies over time and space, novel quantitative approaches based on spatial analysis, however, are rapidly gaining momentum. The archaeological community has recognized their importance to support and add value to archaeological data as their contextualisation and interpretation. The development of highly specialized plugins and packages in open-source frameworks like R, QGIS and SAGA GIS has enabled researchers to process archaeological data using a much wider range of statistical methods, significantly advancing our ability to understand the...
Spatial detection of object is a central issue in many disciplines as well as a major challenge i... more Spatial detection of object is a central issue in many disciplines as well as a major challenge in Archaeology. Such settlements detection can be assisted by Computer Vision approaches which offer a large body of state-of-the-art research notably in content-based image retrieval using graph-based segmentation. In the large family of segmentation methods, the main approach considers objects as resulting from the aggregation of similar or homogeneous regions (nodes), according to their features dissimilarities (weighted edges) and their spatial relation. Nowadays few formal researches in archaeology seem to have exploited the aforementioned clustering framework for archaeological site detection (features similarities and spatial proximity). The present study is an interdisciplinary research project that combines archaeological knowledge with geographical and statistical expertise. We deal with roman ascertained archaeological evidences in Switzerland characterized by their spatial loc...
Call for Papers (current) by Maria Elena Castiello
Climate Change, Human Impact and the Challenges of Assessing the Sustainability of Archaeological... more Climate Change, Human Impact and the Challenges of Assessing the Sustainability of Archaeological Heritage Archaeological heritage is currently affected by a large number of natural hazards that are a direct consequence of climate change and by a certain share of damages caused by human aggression or intervention. This is inevitably going to damage still unknown archaeological sites, affect existing exposed ones and generate new difficulties for the sustainable preservation of archaeological heritage at a scale we have not experienced before. This session would like to gather different approaches to site vulnerability assessment, from remote sensing analysis, to site monitoring, including big-data and modelling practices developed within such a framework. The goal of the session is to discuss methodological challenges, the value of different scales of analyses and the difficulties in obtaining a full view of the multiple scales of hazards that can affect archaeological heritage today and in the future for a better and more strategic protection and research policy. Success stories of sustainable site protection measures after risk assessment are also much encouraged.
EAA, 2023
One of the most problematic issues when working with humanistic data, and specifically with archa... more One of the most problematic issues when working with humanistic data, and specifically with archaeological data, is their imperfection. The data is ambiguous, partial, imprecise, uncertain. This imperfection, which can be intrinsic to the data themselves or be generated later with its processing, makes it difficult to produce reliable results. Speaking of imperfection quickly leads us to think of "lack of perfection", but we are not necessarily alluding to it. Within it would encompass "uncertainty, typing error, imprecision, missing and uselessness" (Achich, 2019) but also incoherence, incompleteness and redundancy (depending on the authors) as sources of data imperfection. In recent years, some researchers have become increasingly interested in the need to address in their research, especially those using databases, the problem of data imperfection and all the implications that this entails. Despite this, not many researchers have yet delved into this aspect in their research. The session we propose aims to bring together researchers who are or have worked on the imperfection of archaeological data in its broadest sense, from theoretical reflections to proposals for managing the imperfection or part of it (uncertainty, inaccuracy, incompleteness, etc.) in any chronological period and application, both during the collection of data in the field or its processing in the laboratory. This session proposes an open forum to co-create knowledge on the subject of: How can we address the imperfection (any of its properties) of archaeological data? How should we manage data to obtain more honest results and how can we design best practices for establishing scientific transparency? Is it possible to propose archaeological data management standards? What are the options? Proposals for managing the imperfection of archaeological data. How can we represent and manage the imperfection of archaeological dating? What strategies should we use in data collection to "reduce" imperfection?
Open science is an umbrella term for various initiatives that aim at promoting a more robust, eth... more Open science is an umbrella term for various initiatives that aim at promoting a more robust, ethical and transparent scientific environment. One of the most important trends in global science in recent decades, it aims to sustainably strengthen the impact, transparency and reproducibility of scientific research. Central aspects of open science include open access (free, unrestricted access to scientific publications), open data (free and unrestricted access to research data), and methodological reproducibility.
Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2021
The present work proposes an innovative approach to surveys and demonstrates the effectiveness of... more The present work proposes an innovative approach to surveys and demonstrates the effectiveness of bringing together traditional archaeological questions, such as the exploration and the analysis of settlement patterns, with the most innovative technologies related to Machine Learning. Namely, we applied Random Forest, an ensemble learning method based on decision trees, to perform archaeological predictive modeling (APM) for the Canton of Zurich, in Switzerland. This was done based on a dataset of known archaeological sites dating back to the Roman Age. The APM represents an automated decision-making and probabilistic reasoning tool that is relevant for archaeological risk assessment and cultural heritage management. Machine learning-based approaches can learn from data and make predictions, starting from the acquired knowledge, through the modeling of the hidden relationships between a set of observations, representing the dependent variable (i.e. the archeological sites), and the independent variables (i.e. the geo-environmental features prone to influence the site locations). The main objective of the present study is to assess the spatial probability of presence for Roman settlements within the study area. As results, we produced: 1) a probability map, expressing the likelihood of finding a Roman site at different locations; 2) the importance ranking of the geo-environmental features influencing the presence of the archeological sites. These outputs in our results are of paramount importance, not only in verifying the reliability of the data, but also in stimulating experts in different ways. Also, these results help evaluate the benefits and constraints of using such innovative techniques and, ultimately, help explore the performance of machine learning-based models in processing archaeological information.
Vagueness has always been a difficult topic in science; information that is uncertain, or entitie... more Vagueness has always been a difficult topic in science; information that is uncertain, or entities with unclear borders, for example, are especially difficult to treat. Over the past few years, for archaeology, and for the humanities in general, vagueness has started to be considered as a rich source of knowledge when it is adequately managed. Mechanisms to record, represent and communicate vagueness have been proposed, and CAA as well as other conferences has had some very good sessions on this topic in recent years. This complements a long tradition of trying to cope with vagueness; works such as [2] and, more recently, [6], have paved the way for more recent research.
The aim of this line of research can be summaries as follows: instead of treating vagueness as an undesirable and annoying aspect of archaeological information, we should start seeing it as a valuable resource that must be recorded, processed and visualised for richer interpretations and more nuanced conclusions.
Current Research
Recently, approaches have been proposed to classify vagueness in different types (such as ontological vs. epistemic [3]), capture vague information about archaeological entities [5], or visualise vagueness in 3D archaeological reconstructions [1]. The Digital Humanities community has also paid significant attention to this, with specific projects (such as PROVIDEDH, http://www.chistera.eu/projects/providedh) and some specific workshops and tracks focusing on vagueness, such as “Complexity And Uncertainty In DH Projects: A Co-design Approach Around Data Visualization” within Digital Humanities (DH) 2019, or “Uncertainty in Digital Humanities” in the International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM) 2019. Information science and computing are also starting to work on this field, as exemplified by the ongoing special issue of Information on vagueness [4].
Most of these works, however, are extremely data-oriented, focussing on how to capture vagueness in databases or how to express it in datasets. Although this is very interesting, it only constitutes part of the necessary work; in order to treat vagueness as a valuable asset, we must start by being aware of its existence and impact in our data models, and include the explicit treatment of vagueness as one factor in the decision-making processes of model building in archaeology. In addition, we need tools to build and process vagueness as one dimension of the archaeological data from the field to the final report.
So far, there are no tools like these, and drawing conclusions that incorporate vague knowledge or evaluating the impact of vagueness in research outcomes is practically impossible.
Expected Contributions
In this manner, research is necessary to contribute sound philosophical arguments to the treatment of vagueness in archaeology; to provide a good conceptualisation of related ontological and epistemic issues such as precision, exactitude, accuracy, perfection, error, ambiguity, generalisation, or reliability; and to suggest notational and visual devices to convey vagueness in 3D reconstructions, maps, charts and other forms of representations. Only when a solid theoretical foundation has been set will we be able to develop computer systems that can store, process and represent vagueness as appropriate.
This is especially so in relation to space and time. Objects with fuzzy spatial boundaries (such as many archaeological sites or areas) are difficult to manage, study and preserve, and events or phases with uncertain or unclear temporal boundaries are equally hard to treat. This session aims to advance contributions to fulfil these needs.
Expected Themes
Papers are welcome in this session about the following topics, among others:
• Philosophical accounts of vagueness, including ontological and epistemic aspects.
• Relationships between linguistic, spatial, and temporal vagueness.
• Theories, ontologies and conceptual models of data vagueness in archaeology.
• Use of different computational approaches such as fuzzy logic, many-valued logics, machine learning or other quantitative approaches to the description of vagueness in archaeological data.
• Incorporating vagueness to the recording of data in the field or the lab using databases and other information systems.
• Visualisation of vagueness in final outputs of computer-aided archaeological products, including datasets, maps, timelines, sketches, 3D reconstructions and other visual representations of the archaeological record.
• Case reports of archaeological sites or areas that have been affected (positively or negatively) by the treatment of vague information.
Audience
The session will be of interest to:
• Archaeologists concerned with a richer and more nuanced representation of spatial and temporal vagueness.
• Cultural heritage managers that must make decisions on, and deal with, information that is intrinsically imprecise and uncertain.
• Developers of information systems that are aiming to capture vagueness in their data.
Session Format
This will be a standard session including an introductory invited keynote talk (20 minutes) plus a number of 20-minute papers. Time for discussion will be available.
References
[1] L. Brunke, “Uncertainty in archaeological 3D reconstructions,” University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2017.
[2] P. A. Burrough, I. Masser, and F. Salgé, “Natural Objects with Indeterminate Boundaries,” in Geographic Objects with Indeterminate Boundaries, no. 2, P. A. Burrough and A. U. Frank, Eds. London: Taylor & Francis, 1996, pp. 3–28.
[3] C. Gonzalez-Perez, Information Modelling for Archaeology and Anthropology. Springer, 2018.
[4] C. Gonzalez-Perez, M. Pereira-Fariña, and L. Tobalina-Pulido, “Information Vagueness.” MDPI, 2020, [Online]. Available: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/information_vagueness.
[5] P. Martín-Rodilla, C. Gonzalez-Perez, P. Martin-Rodilla, and C. Gonzalez-Perez, “Conceptualization and Non-Relational Implementation of Ontological and Epistemic Vagueness of Information in Digital Humanities,” Informatics, vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, doi: 10.3390/informatics6020020.
[6] B. Smith and A. C. Varzi, “Fiat and bona fide boundaries: Towards an ontology of spatially extended objects,” in Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS, no. 1329, S. C. Hirtle and A. U. Frank, Eds. Springer, 2005, pp. 103–119.
Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 2020
The study of past societies requires describing and explaining patterns and their dynamics (diffu... more The study of past societies requires describing and explaining patterns and their dynamics (diffusion of materials, settlement organization, raw material exchanges, biological indicators of landscape changes, etc.) in a multi-dimensional spatio-temporal environment from incomplete, ambiguous and heterogeneous datasets, which often lead to (retro)prediction.
Though traditional methods remain important to investigate material culture complexes and past human societies over time and space, novel quantitative approaches based on computational modeling are rapidly gaining momentum. Researchers can rely nowadays on multi-modelling approaches from various backgrounds, including conceptual models, data mining and data-driven analysis (e.g. machine learning and stochastic models), spatial analysis and computer simulations, at different stage of the work process.
In such context, this special collection aims at exploring challenges and opportunities offered by bringing together traditional archaeological questions with the most cutting-edge technological applications.
We invite contributions, related with but not limited to, the following complementary thematic studies and methodological approaches:
- Analysing the emergence and/or the evolution of settlement patterns, network of exchange and/or various limits and “borders”;
- Understanding the progressive organisation of territories during various time scale, from archaeological periods to shorter historical times;
- Using and crossing all the diversity of evidences and information available, all the diversity of methods used to retrace the “long-time” history territories, whether they are mainly derived from naturalistic approaches, from historical archives, or on numerical methods involving modelling.
- Presenting how the successful interdisciplinary collaborations between thematic approaches (from archaeology, history and/or anthropology) and approaches based on spatial analyses, quantitative geography, and/or modelling allow the emergence of new scientific questions and knowledge.
Potential contributors should submit abstracts of about 500 words to Maria Elena Castiello ([email protected]).
The submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the editors and a selection of abstracts will be made to ensure content relevance and consistency.
The authors of selected abstracts will be contacted to submit full manuscripts.
The submission and review of full manuscripts will follow the guidelines of the JCAA.
CIST2020 - Population, temps, territoires - 5e colloque international du CIST, 18-21 novembre 2020, campus Condorcet Paris-Aubervilliers, 2020
Nowadays, a strong interest in the recognition of past territories through the reconstruction of ... more Nowadays, a strong interest in the recognition of past territories through the reconstruction of paleo-landscapes and the evaluation of the human impact is growing in the archaeological discipline. In this regard, the most recent studies have been conducted by interdisciplinary research teams, as the goals to achieve clearly lay beyond the frame of traditional archaeology. Therefore, biologists, geologists, geographers, etc. have started to work in conjunction with archaeologists in order to decode and highlight the human-environment interaction over time. Land-use simulation, population movements and material cultures investigations, by means of new high-performance technologies, have been major research topics in the last decades.
The simulation of the past human-environmental relationships relies on the analysis of diverse sources of information. On one hand, it deals with the excavation reports, classical textual archives, planimetric and naturalistic records. On the other hand, new quantitative methods -such as predictive modelling, machine learning, GIS, stable isotope analysis, XRF, automated object detection, etc.- have been currently applied for producing new information. This broad interest in multi-modelling approaches in landscape archaeology might be ascribed to advances made in technology and in the growing number of interdisciplinary projects.
This session aims to accommodate researchers, regardless of their study region or chronology, to show and share the methods and results of their interdisciplinary projects focused on human-environmental interaction. Therefore, communications oriented toward themes like the analysis of synchronic and diachronic settlement patterns, raw material exchanges, biological indicators of landscape evolution, diet of humans, animals and plant growth, in all their multiscale complexity, are strongly encouraged.
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Papers by Maria Elena Castiello
Call for Papers (current) by Maria Elena Castiello
The aim of this line of research can be summaries as follows: instead of treating vagueness as an undesirable and annoying aspect of archaeological information, we should start seeing it as a valuable resource that must be recorded, processed and visualised for richer interpretations and more nuanced conclusions.
Current Research
Recently, approaches have been proposed to classify vagueness in different types (such as ontological vs. epistemic [3]), capture vague information about archaeological entities [5], or visualise vagueness in 3D archaeological reconstructions [1]. The Digital Humanities community has also paid significant attention to this, with specific projects (such as PROVIDEDH, http://www.chistera.eu/projects/providedh) and some specific workshops and tracks focusing on vagueness, such as “Complexity And Uncertainty In DH Projects: A Co-design Approach Around Data Visualization” within Digital Humanities (DH) 2019, or “Uncertainty in Digital Humanities” in the International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM) 2019. Information science and computing are also starting to work on this field, as exemplified by the ongoing special issue of Information on vagueness [4].
Most of these works, however, are extremely data-oriented, focussing on how to capture vagueness in databases or how to express it in datasets. Although this is very interesting, it only constitutes part of the necessary work; in order to treat vagueness as a valuable asset, we must start by being aware of its existence and impact in our data models, and include the explicit treatment of vagueness as one factor in the decision-making processes of model building in archaeology. In addition, we need tools to build and process vagueness as one dimension of the archaeological data from the field to the final report.
So far, there are no tools like these, and drawing conclusions that incorporate vague knowledge or evaluating the impact of vagueness in research outcomes is practically impossible.
Expected Contributions
In this manner, research is necessary to contribute sound philosophical arguments to the treatment of vagueness in archaeology; to provide a good conceptualisation of related ontological and epistemic issues such as precision, exactitude, accuracy, perfection, error, ambiguity, generalisation, or reliability; and to suggest notational and visual devices to convey vagueness in 3D reconstructions, maps, charts and other forms of representations. Only when a solid theoretical foundation has been set will we be able to develop computer systems that can store, process and represent vagueness as appropriate.
This is especially so in relation to space and time. Objects with fuzzy spatial boundaries (such as many archaeological sites or areas) are difficult to manage, study and preserve, and events or phases with uncertain or unclear temporal boundaries are equally hard to treat. This session aims to advance contributions to fulfil these needs.
Expected Themes
Papers are welcome in this session about the following topics, among others:
• Philosophical accounts of vagueness, including ontological and epistemic aspects.
• Relationships between linguistic, spatial, and temporal vagueness.
• Theories, ontologies and conceptual models of data vagueness in archaeology.
• Use of different computational approaches such as fuzzy logic, many-valued logics, machine learning or other quantitative approaches to the description of vagueness in archaeological data.
• Incorporating vagueness to the recording of data in the field or the lab using databases and other information systems.
• Visualisation of vagueness in final outputs of computer-aided archaeological products, including datasets, maps, timelines, sketches, 3D reconstructions and other visual representations of the archaeological record.
• Case reports of archaeological sites or areas that have been affected (positively or negatively) by the treatment of vague information.
Audience
The session will be of interest to:
• Archaeologists concerned with a richer and more nuanced representation of spatial and temporal vagueness.
• Cultural heritage managers that must make decisions on, and deal with, information that is intrinsically imprecise and uncertain.
• Developers of information systems that are aiming to capture vagueness in their data.
Session Format
This will be a standard session including an introductory invited keynote talk (20 minutes) plus a number of 20-minute papers. Time for discussion will be available.
References
[1] L. Brunke, “Uncertainty in archaeological 3D reconstructions,” University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2017.
[2] P. A. Burrough, I. Masser, and F. Salgé, “Natural Objects with Indeterminate Boundaries,” in Geographic Objects with Indeterminate Boundaries, no. 2, P. A. Burrough and A. U. Frank, Eds. London: Taylor & Francis, 1996, pp. 3–28.
[3] C. Gonzalez-Perez, Information Modelling for Archaeology and Anthropology. Springer, 2018.
[4] C. Gonzalez-Perez, M. Pereira-Fariña, and L. Tobalina-Pulido, “Information Vagueness.” MDPI, 2020, [Online]. Available: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/information_vagueness.
[5] P. Martín-Rodilla, C. Gonzalez-Perez, P. Martin-Rodilla, and C. Gonzalez-Perez, “Conceptualization and Non-Relational Implementation of Ontological and Epistemic Vagueness of Information in Digital Humanities,” Informatics, vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, doi: 10.3390/informatics6020020.
[6] B. Smith and A. C. Varzi, “Fiat and bona fide boundaries: Towards an ontology of spatially extended objects,” in Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS, no. 1329, S. C. Hirtle and A. U. Frank, Eds. Springer, 2005, pp. 103–119.
Though traditional methods remain important to investigate material culture complexes and past human societies over time and space, novel quantitative approaches based on computational modeling are rapidly gaining momentum. Researchers can rely nowadays on multi-modelling approaches from various backgrounds, including conceptual models, data mining and data-driven analysis (e.g. machine learning and stochastic models), spatial analysis and computer simulations, at different stage of the work process.
In such context, this special collection aims at exploring challenges and opportunities offered by bringing together traditional archaeological questions with the most cutting-edge technological applications.
We invite contributions, related with but not limited to, the following complementary thematic studies and methodological approaches:
- Analysing the emergence and/or the evolution of settlement patterns, network of exchange and/or various limits and “borders”;
- Understanding the progressive organisation of territories during various time scale, from archaeological periods to shorter historical times;
- Using and crossing all the diversity of evidences and information available, all the diversity of methods used to retrace the “long-time” history territories, whether they are mainly derived from naturalistic approaches, from historical archives, or on numerical methods involving modelling.
- Presenting how the successful interdisciplinary collaborations between thematic approaches (from archaeology, history and/or anthropology) and approaches based on spatial analyses, quantitative geography, and/or modelling allow the emergence of new scientific questions and knowledge.
Potential contributors should submit abstracts of about 500 words to Maria Elena Castiello ([email protected]).
The submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the editors and a selection of abstracts will be made to ensure content relevance and consistency.
The authors of selected abstracts will be contacted to submit full manuscripts.
The submission and review of full manuscripts will follow the guidelines of the JCAA.
The simulation of the past human-environmental relationships relies on the analysis of diverse sources of information. On one hand, it deals with the excavation reports, classical textual archives, planimetric and naturalistic records. On the other hand, new quantitative methods -such as predictive modelling, machine learning, GIS, stable isotope analysis, XRF, automated object detection, etc.- have been currently applied for producing new information. This broad interest in multi-modelling approaches in landscape archaeology might be ascribed to advances made in technology and in the growing number of interdisciplinary projects.
This session aims to accommodate researchers, regardless of their study region or chronology, to show and share the methods and results of their interdisciplinary projects focused on human-environmental interaction. Therefore, communications oriented toward themes like the analysis of synchronic and diachronic settlement patterns, raw material exchanges, biological indicators of landscape evolution, diet of humans, animals and plant growth, in all their multiscale complexity, are strongly encouraged.
The aim of this line of research can be summaries as follows: instead of treating vagueness as an undesirable and annoying aspect of archaeological information, we should start seeing it as a valuable resource that must be recorded, processed and visualised for richer interpretations and more nuanced conclusions.
Current Research
Recently, approaches have been proposed to classify vagueness in different types (such as ontological vs. epistemic [3]), capture vague information about archaeological entities [5], or visualise vagueness in 3D archaeological reconstructions [1]. The Digital Humanities community has also paid significant attention to this, with specific projects (such as PROVIDEDH, http://www.chistera.eu/projects/providedh) and some specific workshops and tracks focusing on vagueness, such as “Complexity And Uncertainty In DH Projects: A Co-design Approach Around Data Visualization” within Digital Humanities (DH) 2019, or “Uncertainty in Digital Humanities” in the International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality (TEEM) 2019. Information science and computing are also starting to work on this field, as exemplified by the ongoing special issue of Information on vagueness [4].
Most of these works, however, are extremely data-oriented, focussing on how to capture vagueness in databases or how to express it in datasets. Although this is very interesting, it only constitutes part of the necessary work; in order to treat vagueness as a valuable asset, we must start by being aware of its existence and impact in our data models, and include the explicit treatment of vagueness as one factor in the decision-making processes of model building in archaeology. In addition, we need tools to build and process vagueness as one dimension of the archaeological data from the field to the final report.
So far, there are no tools like these, and drawing conclusions that incorporate vague knowledge or evaluating the impact of vagueness in research outcomes is practically impossible.
Expected Contributions
In this manner, research is necessary to contribute sound philosophical arguments to the treatment of vagueness in archaeology; to provide a good conceptualisation of related ontological and epistemic issues such as precision, exactitude, accuracy, perfection, error, ambiguity, generalisation, or reliability; and to suggest notational and visual devices to convey vagueness in 3D reconstructions, maps, charts and other forms of representations. Only when a solid theoretical foundation has been set will we be able to develop computer systems that can store, process and represent vagueness as appropriate.
This is especially so in relation to space and time. Objects with fuzzy spatial boundaries (such as many archaeological sites or areas) are difficult to manage, study and preserve, and events or phases with uncertain or unclear temporal boundaries are equally hard to treat. This session aims to advance contributions to fulfil these needs.
Expected Themes
Papers are welcome in this session about the following topics, among others:
• Philosophical accounts of vagueness, including ontological and epistemic aspects.
• Relationships between linguistic, spatial, and temporal vagueness.
• Theories, ontologies and conceptual models of data vagueness in archaeology.
• Use of different computational approaches such as fuzzy logic, many-valued logics, machine learning or other quantitative approaches to the description of vagueness in archaeological data.
• Incorporating vagueness to the recording of data in the field or the lab using databases and other information systems.
• Visualisation of vagueness in final outputs of computer-aided archaeological products, including datasets, maps, timelines, sketches, 3D reconstructions and other visual representations of the archaeological record.
• Case reports of archaeological sites or areas that have been affected (positively or negatively) by the treatment of vague information.
Audience
The session will be of interest to:
• Archaeologists concerned with a richer and more nuanced representation of spatial and temporal vagueness.
• Cultural heritage managers that must make decisions on, and deal with, information that is intrinsically imprecise and uncertain.
• Developers of information systems that are aiming to capture vagueness in their data.
Session Format
This will be a standard session including an introductory invited keynote talk (20 minutes) plus a number of 20-minute papers. Time for discussion will be available.
References
[1] L. Brunke, “Uncertainty in archaeological 3D reconstructions,” University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2017.
[2] P. A. Burrough, I. Masser, and F. Salgé, “Natural Objects with Indeterminate Boundaries,” in Geographic Objects with Indeterminate Boundaries, no. 2, P. A. Burrough and A. U. Frank, Eds. London: Taylor & Francis, 1996, pp. 3–28.
[3] C. Gonzalez-Perez, Information Modelling for Archaeology and Anthropology. Springer, 2018.
[4] C. Gonzalez-Perez, M. Pereira-Fariña, and L. Tobalina-Pulido, “Information Vagueness.” MDPI, 2020, [Online]. Available: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/information_vagueness.
[5] P. Martín-Rodilla, C. Gonzalez-Perez, P. Martin-Rodilla, and C. Gonzalez-Perez, “Conceptualization and Non-Relational Implementation of Ontological and Epistemic Vagueness of Information in Digital Humanities,” Informatics, vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, doi: 10.3390/informatics6020020.
[6] B. Smith and A. C. Varzi, “Fiat and bona fide boundaries: Towards an ontology of spatially extended objects,” in Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS, no. 1329, S. C. Hirtle and A. U. Frank, Eds. Springer, 2005, pp. 103–119.
Though traditional methods remain important to investigate material culture complexes and past human societies over time and space, novel quantitative approaches based on computational modeling are rapidly gaining momentum. Researchers can rely nowadays on multi-modelling approaches from various backgrounds, including conceptual models, data mining and data-driven analysis (e.g. machine learning and stochastic models), spatial analysis and computer simulations, at different stage of the work process.
In such context, this special collection aims at exploring challenges and opportunities offered by bringing together traditional archaeological questions with the most cutting-edge technological applications.
We invite contributions, related with but not limited to, the following complementary thematic studies and methodological approaches:
- Analysing the emergence and/or the evolution of settlement patterns, network of exchange and/or various limits and “borders”;
- Understanding the progressive organisation of territories during various time scale, from archaeological periods to shorter historical times;
- Using and crossing all the diversity of evidences and information available, all the diversity of methods used to retrace the “long-time” history territories, whether they are mainly derived from naturalistic approaches, from historical archives, or on numerical methods involving modelling.
- Presenting how the successful interdisciplinary collaborations between thematic approaches (from archaeology, history and/or anthropology) and approaches based on spatial analyses, quantitative geography, and/or modelling allow the emergence of new scientific questions and knowledge.
Potential contributors should submit abstracts of about 500 words to Maria Elena Castiello ([email protected]).
The submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the editors and a selection of abstracts will be made to ensure content relevance and consistency.
The authors of selected abstracts will be contacted to submit full manuscripts.
The submission and review of full manuscripts will follow the guidelines of the JCAA.
The simulation of the past human-environmental relationships relies on the analysis of diverse sources of information. On one hand, it deals with the excavation reports, classical textual archives, planimetric and naturalistic records. On the other hand, new quantitative methods -such as predictive modelling, machine learning, GIS, stable isotope analysis, XRF, automated object detection, etc.- have been currently applied for producing new information. This broad interest in multi-modelling approaches in landscape archaeology might be ascribed to advances made in technology and in the growing number of interdisciplinary projects.
This session aims to accommodate researchers, regardless of their study region or chronology, to show and share the methods and results of their interdisciplinary projects focused on human-environmental interaction. Therefore, communications oriented toward themes like the analysis of synchronic and diachronic settlement patterns, raw material exchanges, biological indicators of landscape evolution, diet of humans, animals and plant growth, in all their multiscale complexity, are strongly encouraged.
These methods often encounter two types of difficulties. In one hand, the spatial study of past societies requires describing and explaining patterns and their dynamics (diffusion of materials, settlements organization, etc.) from incomplete datasets, which often lead to (retro)prediction. To overcome the underlying difficulties, researchers can rely nowadays on multi-modelling approaches, including conceptual models, data mining and data-driven analysis (e.g. machine learning and stochastic models), spatial analysis and computer simulations, at different stage of the work process. In the other hand, the availability of massive digital geo-referenced databases enable scientists to deal with the increasing need of elaborating predictive maps relevant for archaeological risk assessment and cultural heritage management, as decision-making and probabilistic reasoning tool.
Proposals for communication and research topics may cover two complementary subjects: 1) Predictive modelling and the use of quantitative approaches, such as 3D technologies, spatial analysis and remote sensing for archaeological risk assessment and cultural heritage management, with preservation and conservation purposes; 2) reconstructions of the past, to analyze “past-societies themselves” by answering the following questions:
What are the position and the goal of modelling within a study focusing on ancient society? How and why does this position evolve during reasoning or a process?
What is the signification of the model(s) in relation to the past societies that are studied? What are the risks of a discrepancy (anachronism for instance) between a spatial model and the studied society? How can we adapt the models accordingly?
When studying past societies, the data is usually incomplete, ambiguous and heterogeneous. What can we learn, and how, from a model that relies on such data?
The aim is also to initiate a dialogue within the archaeological and historians communities and the broader community of researchers sharing a common interest in quantitative geographical dimension.
other disciplines as well as the availability and processability of (openly shared) big data have triggered fundamental changes in research over the last decades and expanded the toolbox of archaeological methods. While traditional methods (i.e. typochronology, mapping sites) remain important and continue to be used to study material culture complexes and past human societies over time and space, novel quantitative approaches based on spatial analysis, however, are rapidly gaining momentum. The archaeological community has recognized their importance to support and add value to archaeological data as their contextualisation and interpretation.