Articles by Silvana Costa

Archaeological stratigraphy-datasets are widely represented and visualised by the Harris Matrix. However, even digital Harris matrices retain most of the limitations their paper originals experienced and they are still in need of a standardised format for automatic recording. This paper presents an example, based on the well-known CSV open format, with a Data Package descriptor. The Harris Matrix Data Package standard is the result of two independent software implementations, one in Common Lisp by T.S. Dye and one in Python. The proposed format is not limited to describing the stratigraphy for the sole purpose of generating a diagram to look at, but it can be used to model stratigraphy as a Directed Acyclic Graph and to guide the interpretative process and integrate the results with established procedures for Bayesian modelling.

Thesaurus Project aims at promoting the knowledge of the underwater cultural heritage, ancient and modern, through the application of several typologies of tools: underwater autonomous vehicles, which will be able to explore the sea bottom in teams communicating with each other; a database, which will be useful to store and manage all the information referring to archaeological or historical objects, shipwrecks and sites. This paper aims to explain the logic structure of the database indicating the particular needs of the research, the different typologies of items which have to be managed (archaeological and historical objects; ancient, medieval or modern shipwrecks; underwater sites; written or figurative sources, etc.), the relation with other similar databases and projects. The main task of this part of Thesaurus is to plan and organize an IT system, which will allow archaeologists to describe information in detail, in order to make an efficient managing and retrieving data system available.

For the 7th edition of ArcheoFOSS, the authors (who have attended every edition of the event since its founding) have classified all the papers presented during the different workshops and attempted to analyse their most significant characteristics. We highlighted which projects had a real impact on Italian archaeology, which ones fell by the wayside, and did not leave any trace and what was the ultimate fate of these applications. This is a unique occasion to study how archaeology evolved in Italy in the last decade, from the Open Source point of view, and how ArcheoFOSS proposals influenced the job market and the relationships among institutions. We tested whether the Open Source and Open Data culture really influenced archaeological work and made it better, where and why it happened and which ones are the most reliable perspectives in this sense, after seven years of attempts.

Our paper describes the IOSA project experiment with the development of free software and documentation. The aim is to show that a “share early” policy for both knowledge and tools is an effective way to enhance the overall quality of archaeological research.

In this paper, we discuss the potentialities of the integration of open data formats (the so called “standards”), open source software and free licenses in the field of cultural heritage.

The excavation conducted since 2002 by the Department of Archaeology of Siena University in the s.c. Byzantine District near the Pythion shrine in Gortyn (Crete) gave the opportunity to develop some methodological reflections about the documentation of the cognitive process performed during archaeological excavations. From this point of view, GIS represents the end-point of an archaeological documentation system that links finds to their physical dimension and spatial position. But GIS appears to be at a hard point when it comes to recording the other side of archaeological information, linked with non-material evidence, functional and non-spatial relationships. This is the kind of information that emerges from the interaction between the clues and finds system and the reading/understanding ability of the team that does the fieldwork. This kind of interaction finds a better form of expression in a “narrative” language (multi-vocal excavation report and video recording). At the same time the opportunity of using a wiki as a platform for a web-based reconstruction of the team’s “mind map” was experimented. With this kind of system every piece of information can find its “place” for archiving, discussing and publishing.