Theme:
2. Archaeological Sciences, Humanities and the Digital era: Bridging the Gaps
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Computational Landscapes: Debating Fundamental Issues of Archaeological Narratives
Content:
Landscape research in archaeology has greatly benefited from the increasing application of computational methods over the last decades. Common examples come from spatial point patterns (Bevan 2020), Bayesian statistics (Crema and Shoda 2021), network analysis (e.g., Brughmans et al. 2024), 3D modelling (Campana et al. 2012), agent-based modelling (Romanowska et al. 2021), and Geographical Information Systems (Conolly 2016). While these and other methods have positively impacted archaeology and landscape studies, there have not been many studies assessing the impact of using advanced computational methods to create narratives about past landscapes. Some exceptions include Verhagen et al. (2021) who have discussed the challenges of comparing advanced spatio-temporal simulation models in archaeology. Bevan and Crema (2021) presented a review of the issues arising from the recent interest in constructing long-term time proxies of human activity using simulation methods. Tenzer et al. (2023) have warned about the potential negative ethical implications of using AI and Machine Learning in archaeology without a full understanding of the inner workings of these complex computations. In addition, there is a growing trend of archaeologists working on quantifying uncertainties of archaeological data and models, as well as on best practices to deal with data incompleteness and imperfection (Lewis 2021).
With this session, we aim to bring together a group of specialists in computational and landscape archaeology to debate how computational approaches, methods and technologies contribute to enhancing landscape archaeological narratives. We invite presentations that explicitly apply and discuss any of the wide range of computational methods in landscape research in archaeology, with emphasis on critical considerations of, for example, how to avoid black box methodologies, potential ethical considerations, dealing with uncertainties in data, applicability of modelling concepts and archaeological theories, integration of different approaches, and issues of using legacy data for advanced modelling and simulations, among others.
Keywords:
Computational methods, Landascape research, archaeological narratives, Fundamental challenges, Black box methodologies, Ethical issues
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
yes
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Eduardo Herrera-Malatesta (Denmark) 1
Co-organisers:
Philip Verhagen (Netherlands) 2
Affiliations:
1. Center for Urban Network Evolutions, Aarhus University
2. Faculty of Humanities, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
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