CALL FOR ABSTRACTS > Theme 4. From vestige to digital landscape : Bringing together modelling, computational analysis, simulation and (geo)visualization within an interdisciplinary and reproducible scientific framework

Theme 4 is organized in collaboration with CAA-FR, the French chapter of the international organization Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA).

Coordination : Nicolas BERNIGAUD, Frédérique BERTONCELLO, Maria-Elena CASTIELLO, Bertrand DAVID, Nicolas FREREBEAU, Anaïs GUILLEM, Thomas HUET, Julie GRAVIER, Raphaëlle KRUMMEICH, Gwénaëlle MOREAU, Marie-Jeanne OURIACHI, Sébastien PLUTNIAK, Sébastien REY-COYREHOURCQ, Muriel VAN RUYMBEKE

We face a reality on our field where all might come together : the risk of losing information or the destruction of artifacts, the impossibility to observe directly inferred phenomena and the challenges due to multiple ways to look at the research object that is intrinsic to interdisciplinary dialogue. Within the realm of a reproducible research, this theme examines arcaheology, through its digital practices in the construction and visualisation of the archaeological narrative in all its many forms. Within these three sessions, we seek to make visible scientific issues at stake associated with archaeological data, software and statistical or generative modelling. We believe that it is important to understand why and how these practices are adopted and may become part of the multidisciplinary field of archaeology.  The first session focuses on  the multiple ways data harmonisation and interoperability are dealt with in archeology, but also adresses more basic scientific issues on data and archeological archives happening (4.1), the second seeks issues at stake in computational archeology, questionning the role of these new practices and methodologies within a critical perspective (4.2), and the last session offers a critical point of view of archaeological facts providing a reflexive framework to better manage the simulated mechanisms at stake in complex systems (4.3).  At last, the theme will enable dialogues between and gathering of different communities (CAA, NASSA, CIDOC etc.).

Keywords : Spatial Archeology; Interdisciplinarity; Interoperability; Digital Humanities; Computational Reproductibility; Models and Simulations; Geovizualisations

Session 4.1. Interoperability and data life cycle & open science in an interdisciplinary context

Coordination : Bertrand DAVID, Anaïs GUILLEM, Thomas HUET, Raphaëlle KRUMMEICH , Gwénaëlle MOREAU, Muriel VAN RUYMBEKE 

Data collection and production depend largely on archaeological practices and contexts. Intimately they are dependent on a certain number of criteria: the type of project, the evolution of types of measurement, increasing specialisation and multidisciplinary, etc. This tends to produce ever more heterogeneous data, increasingly massive and on a variety of media/formats.  Archaeology is a science that almost systematically destroys its object of study by the excavation process. The pace of preventive archaeology is accelerating, meaning the accelaration for the destruction of its material layers.  The increase in preventive excavations results in a fast growth of archaeological data. If this data is not preserved over the long term, it runs the risk to be lost. This makes it all the more urgent to rally the communities of researchers around the concepts of data sharing and digital preservation. Databases, whether individuals or collectives, should ideally be conceived and developed as one of the building blocks of global knowledge. To achieve this, it is necessary to work on both interoperability and data harmonisation. By interoperability, we mean setting up interactions between datasets/sources. By harmonisation, we mean the comparability of the objects studied. Expected communications will present actual cases of linking databases or datasets, with the goal of sharing, interoperability and/or harmonisation. They may also detail one or more stages in the data management: implementation of a data management plan (DMP), development of a conceptual model, use of standardised vocabularies, alignment of typological repositories, and so on. But we could also welcome more fundamental contributions about the future of archaeological archives: might it become itself an object of study in the future? 

Keywords : digital humanities; interoperability; harmonization; data sharing; ontology; knowledge graph; FAIR principles ; DMP; data/digital preservation; metadata; open science; open data; data archive

Session 4.2. Building and making: computational archaeology as a new paradigm ?

Coordination : Nicolas FREREBEAU, Raphaëlle KRUMMEICH, Sébastien PLUTNIAK, Sébastien Rey-COYREHOURCQ 

A revitalization of formal and statistical methods to archaeology has marked the last decade, driven by a continuous increase in the volume of data. Within this context, ways to collect and process data are more or less intuitive for archaeologists. Through these years, digital humanities was also enlivened by intense debates about its definition and practice, leading a shift in humanities and social sciences practices from "reading and criticism" of sources to "building and making" by writing and executing computer programs. Since the 1980s, computer scientists have defined literate programming as a method of writing computer code primarily for human readability, with computational execution being a secondary concern. Both communities adopted a similar goal : rendering intelligible the relationship with computers and data processing or representation. The scope of this session is to study the role of digital methods in the development of archaeology. Are these methods merely methodological tools, or do they pave the way for new paradigms, transforming archaeology through the evolution of its tools and data? Should the emergence of these new practices be seen as empowering archaeologists in relation to digital technologies ? Within challenges due to reproducibility crisis, and the scarcity of funding and recruitment, how can we "build and make" a digital archaeology that is open, accessible, and reproducible? Proposed communications may present a new tool focusing on debate regarding transformations in archaeological practices or reflexive issues on the role of these new practices, illustrated by cases study.

Keywords : data mining, processing and visualization, literate programming, software development, computational reproducibility

Session 4.3. Modeling and simulation of spatial phenomena

Coordination : Nicolas BERNIGAUD, Frédérique BERTONCELLO, Maria-Elena CASTIELLO, Julie GRAVIER, Marie-Jeanne OURIACHI, Sébastien REY-COYREHOURCQ

Archaeology is a science that does not allow direct observations of the processes studied. Generative models, including agent-based simulations, are very effective in thinking about the dynamics that could have produced the configurations and trajectories identified from the data collected. Indeed, based on the formalization of the processes/mechanisms supposed to be at work in past societies, they make it possible to simulate interactions within complex systems, such as socio-environmental systems. While the expressiveness of computer languages and dedicated platforms leads us to consider these models as real "virtual laboratories" for experimentation, the development of the use of these methodologies in archaeology remains contrasted, between enthusiastic expansion and "critical" retraction (Lake, 2014). However, a small community of archaeological modellers has emerged in Europe over the past fifteen years. The session aims to take stock of developments in this field of research in France and abroad. How did this nascent community take up the issues specific to the modelling of past societies? How does it meet the challenges posed by the organization and current practices of archaeological research? The expected papers will focus on an example of modelling/simulation of past societies explaining how the following challenges are addressed :

• construction: model objectives, input data, level of complexity of the model and in the model, coupling of formalisms, model family, neutral landscape
• exploration: patterns, equifinality, stochasticity, sensitivity, spatial dimension, exploration and visualization
• validation: internal coherence of the model, multiplicity of hypotheses, comparing model outputs/observed data
• reproducibility, interoperability, reusability
• on the contributions/difficulties of interdisciplinarity
• on the lack of training/interests/means/visibility
• etc.

Papers will also be able to develop a reflective approach to modelling and simulation in archaeology.

Keywords : generative simulation models; epistemology; networks and communities of practice; issues and perspectives; past societies; agent-based modelling