Articles by Nevio Dubbini

Data and the possibility to circulate and spread them are the key infrastructure of archaeology. Part of the (interpretative) information underlying data is connected to the know-how of each single researcher. Data, instead, are firm points. In this paper, we describe how open data can be used for determining the archaeological potential. We used a sizable number of datasets, in order to consider the problem of estimation of archaeological potential in all of its aspects: archaeological, historical, and geomorphological data. As the identification of relations among finds is a key issue in archaeological interpretation process, we applied a modified version of the PageRank algorithm. The procedure included a categorization of archaeological data, the assignment of initial values of potential to the available data, the creation of geomorphological maps, the definition of functional areas (i.e. the levels of spatial and functional organization: urban, suburban and rural areas), and the application of the PageRank based algorithm. The model has been applied on the urban area of Pisa, and tested through the data of 14 new cores. The map of archaeological potential consists of the composition of the 7 layers, one for each archaeological period under consideration. The results, including the archaeological potential map, are to be considered as the first steps towards an automatic, formally definable, and repeatable approach to the computation of archaeological potential.