131 research outputs found

    Webmapping in the historical and archaeological sciences. An introduction

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    The paper introduces the concept of webmapping in the archaeological and historical sciences. The interest in offering an online mapping service is developed in terms of collaborative working, technical support, e-learning, mapping functions, and hardware and software architecture. The integration of the webmapping functions in the more general case of a Geoportal is also considered. Examples of operational Geoportals and projects in progress are also briefly described, most of them being detailed by their authors in the present volume

    Archaeology and computers: a long story in the making of modern archaeology

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    The growing success, for more than fifty years, of the scientific contribution of computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology may be now reviewed and analyzed from different technological and sociological points of view. This examination allows us to appreciate the material importance of such contributions and how the community of specialists in computational archaeology should play a major role in the future of 21st-century archaeology

    Methodology of calculation of construction and hydrodynamic parameters of a foam layer apparatus for mass-transfer processes

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    Промислова реалізація методу стабілізації газорідинного шару дозволяє значно розширити галузь застосування пінних апаратів і відкриває нові можливості інтенсифікації технологічних процесів з одночасним створенням маловідходних технологій. У статті встановлені основні параметри, що впливають на гідродинаміку пінних апаратів, розглянуті основні конструкції та режими роботи пінних апаратів. Виявлено зв'язок гідродинамічних параметрів. Розглянуто гідродинамічні закономірності пінного шару. Вказані фактори, що впливають на процес масообміну, як в газовій, так і в рідкій фазах. Проведений аналіз ряду досліджень показав, що перспективним напрямком інтенсифікації процесу масообміну є розробка апаратів з трифазним псевдозрідженим шаром зрошуваної насадки складних форм із сітчастих матеріалів. Отже, необхідне проведення спеціальних досліджень гідродинамічних режимів роботи апарату з сітчастою насадкою і визначенням параметрів, що впливають на швидкість переходу насадки з одного режиму в інший.Industrial implementation of the stabilization method of the gas-liquid layer can significantly expand the field of use of foaming apparatus and opens up new opportunities for intensifying technological processes with the simultaneous creation of low-waste technologies. The article establishes the basic parameters influencing the hydrodynamics of foam apparatus, considers the basic constructions and operating modes of foam apparatus. The connection of hydrodynamic parameters is revealed. The hydrodynamic laws of the foam layer are considered. The indicated factors affecting the process of mass transfer, both in the gas and in the liquid phases. The conducted analysis of a number of studies showed that the perspective direction of intensification of the mass transfer process is the development of apparatuses with a three-phase fluidized bed of an irrigated nozzle of complex forms with mesh materials

    Geographic Visualization in Archaeology

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    Archaeologists are often considered frontrunners in employing spatial approaches within the social sciences and humanities, including geospatial technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) that are now routinely used in archaeology. Since the late 1980s, GIS has mainly been used to support data collection and management as well as spatial analysis and modeling. While fruitful, these efforts have arguably neglected the potential contribution of advanced visualization methods to the generation of broader archaeological knowledge. This paper reviews the use of GIS in archaeology from a geographic visualization (geovisual) perspective and examines how these methods can broaden the scope of archaeological research in an era of more user-friendly cyber-infrastructures. Like most computational databases, GIS do not easily support temporal data. This limitation is particularly problematic in archaeology because processes and events are best understood in space and time. To deal with such shortcomings in existing tools, archaeologists often end up having to reduce the diversity and complexity of archaeological phenomena. Recent developments in geographic visualization begin to address some of these issues, and are pertinent in the globalized world as archaeologists amass vast new bodies of geo-referenced information and work towards integrating them with traditional archaeological data. Greater effort in developing geovisualization and geovisual analytics appropriate for archaeological data can create opportunities to visualize, navigate and assess different sources of information within the larger archaeological community, thus enhancing possibilities for collaborative research and new forms of critical inquiry

    The golden years for mathematics and computers in archaeology (1965-1985)

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    A major quantitative movement in all of the Social and Human Sciences known as Operational Research, started after the last world war with the application of mathematics developed for the optimization of war logistics. Since the 1960s, the fascinating progress of computer technology in the field of scientific research has amplified the movement which saw the first applications to Archaeology around 1966. At the time, the success of a Quantitative Archaeology was associated with the revolution in multidimensional data analysis, which occurred with computerisation and improvements in the algorithms, mainly Multidimensional scaling, Factor Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Correspondence Analysis and various Cluster Analyses. The Conference of Mamaia (Romania) in 1970, which may be considered as the first and most spectacular scientific event of this period of foundation, found expression in the book Mathematics and Computers in Archaeology by Doran and Hodson (1975). From 1975 to 1985, the quantitative movement experienced its finest period with the transition from the research field to the application field, both for algorithms and software, and the diffusion of Correspondence Analysis, Principal Component Analysis associated with Cluster Analysis and their use by archaeologists. Numerous papers and books were published during that period. After 1985, the quantitative movement fell into disfavour, probably due to the "deconstruction" paradigm and the passing fashion of expert systems. Nevertheless, it is also possible to state that Quantitative Archaeology had now definitively entered into the standard methods of Archaeology

    La publication scientifique en langue naturelle est-elle en archéologie un discours logique? Essai de conception d’un langage cognitif d’aide à la pubblication

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    The project of building a cognitive framework to formalise an archaeological language, proposed here, is oriented, not to computerise any archaeological language, but to offer a tool giving a framework mainly for the formalisation and the validation of an archaeological reasoning, as well as to deliver a readable procedure, which completes the conventional natural language of the archaeological publishing. The cognitive framework is based on a decomposition of the methodological iterative procedure into three levels: 1. Acquisition, 2. Structuring, 3. Modelling, in which a cognitive grammar is defined. A cognitive grammar normally defines statements and predicates. The statements have been classified, among the more frequent archaeological statement types, which are generally, for both real and virtual objects, the results of a correlation of intrinsic and extrinsic archaeological information. The predicates are also classified following the nature of decisions they imply, either general to Human sciences, or specific to Archaeology: – identification/differentiations (generalisation of a statement at a n+1 rank), – stabilisation/destabilisations (delimiting the validity value of a statement), – exploration/renunciation (reduction of the potential ways), – paradigmatisation (hypothetical introduction of a rule at an upper level), – appropriations/disappropriations (explicit projection of the archaeologist point of view in the reasoning). The cognitive grammar is used at each of the three levels of the previously defined methodological framework. The formalisation of such a cognitive framework is materialised by a set of statement objects and predicate objects, at each three different levels. Each object may be defined as trivial (needing no more formalisation) or may be linked to another similar cognitive structure, at the origins of the decomposition of the construct into a general system of nested cognitive objects. The archaeological construct, for the scientific publishing, may be materialised by a conventional natural language, to which nested formal constructs are annexed, enabling the reader to more easily validate the logic of the reasoning. The paper is illustrated by examples of applications

    Pour une théorie générale de la connaissance en archéologie

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    An attempt to build a global cognitive theory in Archaeology is proposed. The archaeological method is based on a three level concept : knowledge acquiring, structuring and modelling, inspired by the XIX century work of Peirce, renewed by recent developments of cognitive Sciences and used today in many fields of Social and Human Sciences, System Engineering, and recently proposed in Archaeology (DJINDJIAN 1993). The knowledge acquiring level A is the result of simultaneous and retroactive use of two mechanisms: several specific analogical processes in archaeology (contemporary analogy, ethnographical analogy, experimental analogy) and a cognitive process, general to Human Sciences. Logical objects used by archaeological reasoning are artefacts, set of artefacts (archaeological layer, dwelling structure, burial, etc.) and methodological objects (unit, sample, core, etc.). Such objects may deliver three categories of data: intrinsic data, extrinsic data and administrative data. Intrinsic data (named I) are a view of an object, resulting in the interaction between the archaeological artefact and the archaeologist who is perceiving and describing it. Intrinsic data is a knowledge of the artefact. Extrinsic data (named E) are data recording the various artefact contexts: spatial and stratigraphic localisation, links with neighbouring artefacts, environment, etc. Extrinsic data depends on the quality of archaeological excavation and recording. In all the cognitive processes, knowledge A must be associated with the archaeologist, ARCH, who is at the origin of the interaction artefact/archaeologist, the process of producing the knowledge, Pc, and the validation process Pv, controlling the reasoning: (A, ARCH, Pc, Pv). The structuring level, S, is discussed in relation with the question of enrichment of structures towards the emergence of a system, through a dedicated method called the systemic triple method (DJINDJIAN 1980): 1. Definition of the system S; 2. Perception and description of intrinsic data I; 3. Recording of extrinsic data E; 4. Formalisation of the structuring process: intrinsic structuring (matrix artefact x intrinsic data, O x I), extrinsic structuring (occurrence or Burt matrix intrinsic data x extrinsic data, I x E); 5. Exploratory data analysis on O x I or I x E; 6. Retroactions on I and E; 7. Iterative enrichment by integration of new I and new E; 8. Validation (using another artefact system, a new E, etc.). The modelling level is then examined with a discussion of the limits of the formal logic in Archaeology: empirical-inductive, where “every structure is Culture”, or hypothetical-deductive methods, where “all the models are fitting well” falling in the weakness of so-called paradigmatic models. A new more restricting method is proposed, called the cognitive model method, CMM. The main features of CMM are: explicit, formalised, repetitive, stable, systemic, refutable, predictive, discursive and auditable. A general method to build a cognitive model is then given, in ten steps; some of them are already known and referenced, others are new and detailed: 1. Improving the knowledge A; 2. Discovering the structures S inside data; 3. Enrichment of structures S; 4. Systemic organisation in hierarchical subsystems; 5. Building models R; 6. Validating models R; 7. Retroactions for enrichment and stabilisation of the models R; 8. Model simulation for predictions; 9. Writing the archaeological discourse; 10. Auditing the discourse. The systemic organisation in hierarchical sub-systems is based on a five level system: 1. Technological know-how; 2. Economic activities: craft production, raw material supplying, subsistence resources, energy resources, buildings (dwellings, infrastructure), territory management, manufacturing, exchange and trading, etc.; 3. Social organisation: workflow, specialisation of professions, social groups, social hierarchies, family structures, community administration, defence, taxes, authority systems, etc.; 4. Symbolic sub-system: ideas and beliefs; 5. Global system. In conclusion, such approaches of methodological development are the most reliable but also the most difficult way to reach a real scientific status for Archaeology
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