Panel 11.6 – Computational approaches to Classical Archaeology


Organiser/Chair:

  • Eleftheria Paliou (University of Cologne)

Paper abstracts

1. Evan Levine and Daniel Plekhov (Brown University)

Integrating legacy and modern remote sensing data for the study of land-use history on Samothrace
The rugged and varied topography of the island of Samothrace is the setting for a complex history of human-environment interaction and settlement over time. The small size of the island and its long history of archaeological investigation make it a suitable case study for investigating the relationships between land-use and settlement patterns through time. Drawing on historical CORONA and modern multispectral satellite data, we characterize the distribution of land-use areas and topography on the island, which we then integrate with data provided by archaeological investigation. The use of legacy and modern remote sensing data allows for the identification and description of parameters typical to anthropogenic landscape modifications, such as terraces, which can then be queried on a landscape scale. While such features are notoriously difficult to date, their spatial distribution relative to archaeological sites and areas of cultural importance can better inform our understanding of what areas were considered suitable for settlement and exploitation during different periods, taking account of use, reuse, and abandonment. The integration of these data provides a more nuanced understanding of land-use change, economy, and settlement history on Samothrace.

"Integrating Legacy and Modern Remote Sensing Data for the Study of Land-Use History on Samothrace" (Fulltext)

 

2. Katherine A. Crawford (University of Southampton)

A Landscape of Gods? Reassessing the Study of Processional Movement at Ostia
Religious processions were complex multi-sensorial rituals which varied considerably across time and place. Despite their differences, one consistent feature was the way in which they interacted with the surrounding urban environment, bridging and incorporating otherwise disparate spaces. However, the ways in which processions can be studied is complicated by their limited surviving evidence which manifests predominately through monumental architecture, fragmentary literary accounts, and iconographic depictions. While indicative of their importance, these sources of evidence present an incomplete picture about how processions were integrated within a specific cityscape. Focusing on Ostia, Rome’s ancient port, this study develops a new framework that questions how the built environment and urban activity helped to structure processions. In particular, the use of digital computing methods allows for the exploration of religious processions as a social and spatial phenomenon that intersected with all aspects of urban life. The ways in which processions were structured by the urban landscape and how they navigated the city’s streets are studied by using agent-based modelling as a heuristic tool to visualize possible movement routes. This enables new examination about how religious practices were disseminated across Ostia’s cityscape.

"Modelling Processional Movement at Ostia" (Fulltext)

 

3. John Hanson (University of Colorado)

Complex systems theory, construction, and the economies of ancient settlements
Although there has been increasing interest in using the volume of construction in ancient settlements as an indication of the economic development of the ancient world, it has been difficult to use to this method to assess the economic life of individual settlements. There is now a collection of theories, known as settlement scaling theory, which has drawn on both recent theoretical work on complex systems and new empirical work on urbanism in a range of contexts. This research suggests that there is a consistent set of relationships between the sizes of the inhabited areas of settlements and various measures of their infrastructure and wealth. In this talk, I will evaluate the extent to which these theories can be used to inform our understanding about the links between the sizes, volumes of construction, and levels of resources of ancient settlements. To do this, I will draw on my own estimates of the sizes of their inhabited areas and new measurements of their urban form, including the sizes of fora and agora, the dimensions of urban grids, and the capacities of various kinds of structures, concentrating on a number of case-studies from throughout the Roman world in the imperial period. In doing so, I will argue that these theories not only allow us to bring some kind of order to the mass of material we have for ancient settlements, but also help us to sharpen our thinking about relationships between the built environment and the economic life of ancient settlements.

 

4. Michael Loy (University of Cambridge)

Quantifying the unquantifiable: Bayesian analysis of uncertain economic networks
Over recent years, archaeological studies of the economy have adopted new digital tools and models from the social sciences. One such approach has involved using formal Social Network Analysis (SNA) to represent sites and the complex interactions which took place between them. However, SNA as conducted with regard to its roots in sociology is often practised upon a closed and complete dataset; archaeological material can be described as selective and partial at best. This paper will therefore consider the challenges of using quantitative archaeological data within computer models, and propose a new direction based around the concept of ‘uncertainty’ and Bayesian statistics. Specifically, the case study of a probability- and network-based analysis of material data from the Aegean basin 700-500 BC will be used. By these means, three levels of uncertainty in the archaeological record will be discussed: the uncertainty associated with a context’s date, the question of how representative a dataset is, and the size of datasets from different sites relative to one another. Furthermore, this paper will propose as another solution the potential of Open Data in quantitative studies of the ancient world. By collaborating on shared databases - particularly across large geographic areas which encompass many sites - quantitative archaeological research into much larger and complex economic systems is made more possible, and provides new opportunities in methodology and practice.

 

5. Antoni Martín i Oliveras and Víctor Revilla Calvo (Universitat de Barcelona) / Iza Romanowska (BSC-Barcelona Supercomputing Center) / Jean-Marc Montanier (TAO - Univ. Paris-Sud, INRIA, CNRS-LRI, Bat.) / Simon Carrignon (BSC-Barcelona Supercomputing Center) / Xavier Rubio-Campillo (University of Edinburgh) / José Remesal Rodríguez (Universitat de Barcelona)

Reconstructing laetanian roman wine economy using agent-based modelling (1st century BC-3rd century AD)
Viticulture has played an important role in the economy of the Mediterranean coast of Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD. The vineyards, wineries and pottery workshops are usually found clustering in specific areas, such as the Laetanian region located in the northeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Their spatial and temporal distribution has been previously interpreted as a proof of the existence of intensive and specialized winemaking economy, associated with large-scale production & trading of wine in bulk quantities targeting predominantly to overseas markets such us Gallia, Germania & Rome itself. This fact is further supported by the wide geographical distribution of specific Tarraconensis amphorae forms, which appear in the record of archaeological sites throughout the western part of the Empire. Here we present a explanatory data analysis coupled with an agent-based model simulating economic processes involved in the production, consumption and trade of the Laetanian wine. The model evaluates the strategies that this economic system could adopt in response to the competition from other provinces and the evolution of the wine consumption in the Roman society. We then compare the outcomes of such strategies with two sources of data: the changing dynamics of winemaking ab origine, i.e., in the Laetanian region and the changes in the frequencies of Tarraconensis amphoras ad destinum, that is, in the port of Ostia (Italy).