Volumes / Journal / 26

Archeologia e Calcolatori 26 - 2015

37 articles

Italic inscriptions and databases workshop (Istituto Svedese di Studi Classici a Roma, 23 September 2014), edited by Ulla Rajala

Edited by Ulla Rajala

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Presentation

Kristian Goransson

Abstract

Presentation of the workshop.

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Introduction

Ulla Rajala

Abstract

Introduction to the workshop.

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Pre-Roman languages on the Apennine peninsula

Karin Westin Tikkanen

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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Archaeological computing and ISMA projects

Alessandra Caravale

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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GIS and pre- and postcolonial inscriptions in the Ager Faliscus

Ulla Rajala

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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The EAGLE network

Silvia Orlandi

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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Inscriptions on iDAI.objects Arachne

Reinhard Förtsch, Francesco Mambrini, Wolfgang Schmiedle

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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From CIL to 2D and 3D GIS

Karin Lundqvist, Giacomo Landeschi

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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Inscriptions in their spatial contexts in Roman Italy

Kalle Korhonen, Eeva-Maria Viitanen, Laura Nissin

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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INSCRIPTA. A research network for Latin epigraphy

Anna Blennow

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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Numismatics and inscriptions: ancient coins at Uppsala University brought online

Ragnar Hedlund

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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Swedish National Data Services (SND), a national infrastructure for research data

Ulf Jakobsson

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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Databases and standardisation. Experiences from Athens

Hans Liss, Anne Ingvarsson-Sundström

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

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An epigraphy database: a point of view of a researcher of Oscan/Sabellic epigraphy

Timo Sironen

Abstract

Paper presented at the Italic inscriptions and databases workshop.

Journal articles

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Quantitative methods in Italian archaeology: a review

Alessandro Guidi

Abstract

The use of quantitative graphs began, in Italian archaeology, between the end of the Fifties and the beginnings of the Sixties in the last century, thanks to the work of Renato Peroni (Bronze and Iron Age) and Alberto Broglio (Palaeolithic). In 1976-1977 Amilcare Bietti and Alberto Cazzella published the first important article on the subject in the journal Dialoghi di Archeologia. The Eighties began with Amilcare Bietti publication of the first monograph on the use of mathematical and statistical methods in archaeology, that were to become very popular in many works inspired by processual archaeology. In 1987 the monograph Archeologia e Calcolatori, by Paola Moscati, was published; three years later the first issue of the homonymous Journal was edited. The last 'chapter' of this history is the introduction of new methods (functional analysis of objects and GIS) between the end of the Nineties and the beginnings of Twenty-first century. From that period onwards, the use of quantitative methods became daily routine practice in archaeology in our country.

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The quantification of spatio-temporal distributions of archaeological data: from counts to frequencies

Katia Francesca Achino, Giacomo Capuzzo

Abstract

Traces of past social actions, detectable in the archaeological record, are the material evidence through which we can infer social and economic patterns of ancient societies. These categories can be investigated in both time and space using a probabilistic statistical approach. In an attempt to quantify the results of archaeological processes we distinguish the terms of count and frequency, which is not common in archaeology, focusing particularly on the latter. In this framework we are able to calculate the number of times a certain event took place in relation to the length of the time interval during which the event is repeated. In addition, the statistical tools allow us to understand if the observable material evidence is the result of a particular archaeological phenomenon (accumulation) that can fit a statistical distribution or process (Poisson process and multivariate normal distribution).

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Taxicab correspondence analysis of abundance data in archaeology: three case studies revisited

Solène Mallet Gauthier, Vartan Choulakian

Abstract

This paper compares the method of Correspondence Analysis (CA) for finding patterns in archaeological sites by artifacts abundance data, with a robust variant, named Taxicab Correspondence Analysis (TCA). We show that this comparison is useful, especially for sparse tables with outliers. We identify three kinds of outliers. Three well-known datasets are reanalyzed.

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The flower woman figurines from the Foce Sele Hera Sanctuary. Ancient coroplastic digital data management, analysis, and sharing

Francesca Cantone

Abstract

The paper focuses on the digital strategies developed in the study of the corpus of flower woman terracotta figurines found in the excavations carried out by Paola Zancani Montuoro and Umberto Zanotti Bianco at the Foce Sele Hera Sanctuary and stored in the National Archaeological Museum of Paestum. The flower woman definition identifies the best known structure of the statuettes composed of a female bust supporting a flower orthogonal to the base. Actually, the scientific literature about these peculiar artifacts reveals a diffused vagueness and ambiguity in the definition, formalization, and functional exegesis, encouraging a new comprehensive study. The main results come from: digital management of the information; seriation analysis supported by a quantitative approach; visualization of occurrences in the Mediterranean Basin based on Fusion Tables; testing of multidisciplinary approaches to cooperative content building in archaeology. The study developed a whole technology-enhanced workflow, including multimedia data digital management and sharing; statistical techniques for the analysis of terracotta shrinkage in moulded coroplastic figurines seriation; webGIS visualization of occurrences in the ancient Mediterranean Basin and their relations.

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From the Archaeological Map of Italy to the National Geographical Archaeological Information System. The Sardinian experience

Giovanni Azzena, Roberto Busonera, Federico Nurra, Enrico Petruzzi

Abstract

The Office for the Archaeological Map of Italy was established by Royal Decree in 1889. In 1926, as an ideal continuation of the Archaeological Map, the first volume of the Forma Italiae was published. Subsequently, with the advent of information technology, a new era of archaeological mapping began, adjusting the Forma Italiae to the latest technological developments. Inheriting this solid methodological basis, and benefitting from the latest digital innovations, we present the Sardinian node of the national archaeological computer network. This is not the proposal for the creation of yet another archaeological information system, but a project for the creation of a tool aimed at data sharing and identification of archaeological heritage property. The project intends to be a point of reference for data exchange on a national and international scale and at different levels of detail.

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Pattern analysis of Chalcolithic settlements in the valley of Sarfirouzabad, Kermanshah, Iran

Kamal Aldin Niknami, Vahid Askarpour

Abstract

The advent of new technologies has had a profound impact on the evolution of archaeological methodological approaches, allowing archaeologists to refine traditional assessments about the nature of past human societies and to expand their theoretical horizons. GIS-based technologies are among the new technologies aimed at reconstructing spatial-related aspects of past human communities. The paper illustrates the use of some ArcGIS tools supplemented with satellite low resolution images to produce a layered workable archaeological map suitable for analyzing specific issues such as ancient cultural ecology and landscape reconstruction. Integrated satellite imagery and GIS analyses are applied to reconstruct spatial distribution patterns of the Chalcolithic period in Central Zagros as seen from the Sarfirouzabad valley adjacent to Mahidasht inter-mountainous plain, near Kermanshah, Iran. The search for considerable changes in the settlement distribution patterns relating to the ecological attributes is one of the aims of the paper, using GIS-based methods such as Thiessen polygons analysis, site-point spatial distribution analysis and buffer analysis. The results are discussed through categories covering distribution of Chalcolithic sites over the different environs of the study area, spatial distribution of pottery styles, and spatial models of Chalcolithic distribution patterns.

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Studio dell’insediamento protostorico in un’area della Sardegna centro-occidentale tramite strumenti GIS ed analisi multivariate

Riccardo Cicilloni, Alberto Mossa, Marco Cabras

Abstract

The authors analyze, as a sample-area, the region that includes the municipality of Mogoro, in central-western Sardinia, with the objective to reconstruct, through the study of the settlements and their relationships, some economic and social aspects of the human groups of nuragic culture that inhabited this area between the 18th and the 8th century BC. The territory is located at the foot of Monte Arci, along the Mogoro river that runs through the southern part of the plain of the Campidano of Oristano. The area has been intensively investigated from the half of the past century; an in-depth stratigraphic investigation was carried out since 1994 near the nuragic site of Cuccurada, the main center of an articulated territorial system including a rich network of monuments related to the nuragic civilization. The results are illustrated through various research methods: GIS, with the application of spatial analysis tools, and multivariate analysis (cluster and principal components analysis) that allowed to set out new hypotheses on occupation and populating dynamics and to identify among pre-historical monuments one or more homogeneous and distinguishable groups, resulting from a database in which geomorphological characteristics are recorded. A hierarchical organization and a specific criterion for exploiting and monitoring the landscape have been developed, in which settlement choices depend on functionality criteria, having nuraghi and villages a key role on the strategic control of the territory.

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A hand to the plough. A GIS-based cartographical analysis of changes in elevation due to terrain modification and erosion in the settlement area of ancient Crustumerium

Jorn Seubers, Tom Trienen

Abstract

Plough zone archaeology is revealed to us by post-depositional processes that move, abrade, disperse, obscure and change the composition of surface find assemblages, biasing the interpretation of survey data. The tuff bedrock that is characteristic of the geology of large parts of Central Italy is well known to be prone to erosion, which has been accelerated due to the long and intensive agricultural exploitation of the landscape. In the case of the ancient Latin settlement of Crustumerium (North-Rome) the adverse effects of erosion on the preservation of the archaeological record have been stressed by several scholars. One of the objectives of the archaeological fieldwork on Crustumerium by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology, in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma, is to investigate the nature and impact of these taphonomic processes for the archaeology of this ancient urban area. The current paper investigates the history of land-use on the site of Crustumerium on the basis of elevation information in topographical maps covering a period of a century. The authors will quantify the geomorphological changes on the basis of a diachronic analysis of digital elevation models generated and compared within a GIS. The result is a series of maps in which the degree of erosion and subsequently the expected preservation of subsurface archaeology is defined for the entire settlement area. Maps like this can help guide future research plans, but can also assist in the interpretation of currently available data.

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Al di là della morte del disegno archeologico. I Massive Data Acquisition Systems (MDAS) in archeologia

Josep M. Puche

Abstract

Drawing is a fundamental activity in all archaeological praxis. The emergence and spread of the Massive Data Acquisition Systems (MDAS) have completely revolutionized this documentation area, so that someone has announced his death. Not surprisingly the MDAS have radically changed the concept that we have about archaeological drawing. But this change has been made without planning or without a discussion of what should be his objectives. In this article we try to explain the problems and advantages of using MDAS and above all to reflect on what role they can play in archaeology in order to make them really useful and effective.

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Strategie innovative di elaborazione e restituzione dati del castello crociato di Wu’Ayra

Roberto Gabrielli, Andrea Angelini, Damiano Portarena

Abstract

The recent development of camera sensors, the manufacturing of lenses and the accurate algorithms of photogrammetric software allow today to acquire point clouds similar to those generated from a laser scanner. The results are similar: numerical models that contain a variety of information, useful for the final data synthesis. Thanks to the automatic points recognition of photogrammetric algorithms, it is now possible to revise part of digital data previously acquired and use them in new computing strategies. Emblematic is the example of the crusader castle of Wu'Ayra, an important medieval fortress located in the Petra valley in Jordan. Since 2000, in collaboration with the international mission of the University of Florence, a number of surveys aimed at detecting the whole monumental area, the archaeological site, the settlement and the defensive system of the castle were performed by the research team of the Italian ITABC-CNR. Different survey techniques were used during the acquisition step, in order to enhance the main information of the archaeological site and the geomorphology of an extended area particularly complex to be defined. In these 15 years, the team tested several techniques. Thanks to recent software, the team has revised old data, created a defined numerical model of Wu'Ayra, updated and improved the documentation. The Authors illustrate the results of these elaborations and compare them with the other systems used, highlighting the differences and updating the graphic documentation of an important site in the history of the Petra valley. Furthermore, latest data of the architectural structures of the formworks acquired with laser scanner will be presented.

Documentare l’archeologia 4.0: Strumenti e metodi per la costruzione di banche dati territoriali, Atti del Workshop (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, 5 maggio 2014)

Edited by Antonio Curci, Andrea Fiorini

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Introduzione

Antonio Curci, Andrea Fiorini

Abstract

Introdution to the Workshop.

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Sistemi digitali di documentazione e analisi archeologica. Verso quale direzione?

Stefano Bertoldi, Vittorio Fronza, Marco Valenti

Abstract

This paper explores some issues related to recording and analyzing archaeological datasets. After making our (neo-)processualist approach clear, some key digital technologies (relational databases) and methodologies (conceptual modelling) are discussed as examples to assess the actual state of archaeological information systems and reflect upon possible future directions. This brings us also to define the limits of quantitative (and especially predictive) analyses. Variability of parameters and, above all, the extensive lack of reality tests are heavy hindering factors. Precisely defining the variables and attractors based on specific questions can help us to relativize complex systems, bending the analyses to our needs.

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Paesaggi trascorsi e globalità dell’archeologia

Franco Cambi

Abstract

Landscape Archaeology arises from the spread of a stratigraphic mentality understood as culture, as well as a simple way to investigate. Since its birth, Landscape Archaeology has had a close relationship with Medieval Archaeology. More difficult was the relationship with Classical Archaeology. Only the most careful and curious classical archaeologists had seen the gap and lack of an organic relationship with the natural sciences and geography. In the last decades archaeology has become a place of participation and communication. The past has been told to a wide public through exhibitions and museums, following a path to grow again, until the current systemic crisis of the world’s cultural heritage. Archaeology is a discipline with its own constitution and, within it, global landscape archaeology has its own identity. It is, however, essential that archaeology benefits from closer relationships with other sciences and knowledge networks. A clear change of perspective seems, at this point, necessary. The territorialist approach can be very useful and help to draw new roads.

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Analisi di distribuzione delle ceramiche dell’età del Bronzo: il caso dell’Italia centro-settentrionale

Maurizio Cattani, Florencia Debandi

Abstract

The huge amount of available records belonging to the Italian Bronze Age and the necessity to find a methodological support in data treatment prompted the research group of the University of Bologna to build and test IT solutions. In particular, material culture data were processed within a database system, in order to develop a typological classification, linked to the table containing provenance data (site and context) and to a GIS. Therefore, through the geostatistical analysis it is possible to visualize and easily evaluate the distribution of each type or of any other result. The system includes a visualization module of cumulative graphic documentation resulting from queries to the database for a better reconnaissance and validation of the typological classification. Final aim of the project is the possibility to share with other scholars and institutions any record or any result of distributional analysis through a webGIS, now available in a preliminary testing form.

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Cronotipologia al tempo del web 2.0: banca dati e mappa online dei portali di Genova

Anna Decri, Isidoro Parodi, Stefano Roascio, Giulia Rosatto

Abstract

The article describes the construction of a territorial database that collects information about the 14th century portals of the city of Genoa, in the historic downtown of the area inside the defensive walls. The project focuses on dating some significant elements and demonstrating their importance compared to other elements of the building and the portal itself. Decorative aspects, especially the aesthetic ones, are less significant compared to the thicknesses and shapes of the fixed frame stone of the portals. So the essential characteristics for defining the portal chronotype are the proportions and the thickness of the jamb portal in relation to the width of the net size. The territorial database was created with the aim of collecting information on all portals within the established boundaries. An important contribution to the research planning consists in the CIVIS project: a system in which information collected converged, leading to the production of digital cartography and computer data, available from all over the web. Moreover, the authors illustrate another territorial database produced thanks to a research conducted by ISCUM, which led to cataloguing the chronotypology of the portals in rural areas. In ISCUM databases there are already 2560 rural portals, for the most part located in north-western Italy.

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Archeologia dell’architettura in Romagna: la banca dati territoriale

Andrea Fiorini

Abstract

This article describes the methods used within the Archaeology of Architecture in Romagna research project and in particular the structure and principles of the database. The results obtained in the following fields are illustrated: transformation of the architecture of churches and castles, medieval building technologies, ancient measuring standards, and clients. We selected 47 sites, including 7 ecclesiastical and 40 defensive buildings (castles). In the urban landscape the research focused on one of the most significant ecclesiastical buildings in Ravenna: the church of Santa Croce. Expanding into the field of monumental landscaping, a new project focused on a census of moulds and the forms of ancient building materials (campioni mensori) in northern Italy. In medieval Italian communes craftsmen and traders had to follow many rules to ensure the honesty and integrity of trades. All the members within the same administrative district had to use same systems of linear measurements and weights. Samples of these were exhibited on the walls of public buildings. Our methodological approach for the study of a monument uses the ancient measurements in order to understand the identity of clients, the origin of the workers and the chronology of architectures. The last part of the article suggests future goals of the research project.

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GIS and remote sensing for a preliminary assessment of the archaeological landscape in the Eblaite chora (Syria)

Simone Mantellini

Abstract

The paper focuses on the preliminary assessment of the archaeological landscape around Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Syria). The ERC funded Ebla Chora Project allowed to conduct a systematic collection of findings from the site and its surrounding neighbors. The information from previous surveys was combined with the data from spatial datasets (topographical maps, aerial photos, satellite images, DEMs) in order to provide a first inventory of sites of the Eblaite chora. A preliminary interpretation of the development of settlement pattern and territory exploitation is now possible, especially for the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC) when Ebla was the capital of a vast kingdom. Many potential sites were also detected, however their validation requires a field inspection which is currently suspended because of the civil war.

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Nuove linee di ricerca fra archeologia pre-dittiva e post-dittiva

Armando De Guio

Abstract

This paper focuses on a survey of the Predictive Archaeology domain, including a review of its key developments since the 1960s. A working and minimalist definition of Predictive Archaeology (P) - which becomes Preventive Archaeology in its application, that is, when it is expressed through the quantification of the risk of archaeological impact - may be that of a prediction technique for locating archaeological sites in terra incognita, based on a sample of known sites (terra cognita) or on assumptions about human location/allocation behavior in the past. A prospective view of possible short-term evolutionary scenarios is also illustrated.

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L’alta Valle del Taro: strategie locazionali in ambiente montano

Cristiano Putzolu

Abstract

A case-study is examined concerning the location/allocation strategies of the High Taro Valley (Parma-Italy) during the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and a predictive analysis is performed on the basis of a locally-sensitive application of T. Higuchi's (1998) model. The current work derives from a PhD project carried out by the author at the University of Padova. First, the research project database is presented, then three different analyses performed in mountainous environment are illustrated: two viewshed-based and one distance-based. The first is intended to analyze the visual control of each site on the surrounding landscape and to propose the clustering of sites in different geographical districts following the datum of their intervisibility inside a given buffer. The second seeks to highlight the high rate of overall control of Bronze Age sites over the entire landscape. The distance-based analysis shows a high correspondence between Bronze Age sites and ophiolites formations, known in academic literature as geological formations rich in chalcopyrite and possibly related to bronze metallurgy.

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Dalle ricerche topografiche all’archeologia preventiva. Il GIS del progetto Ager Lucerinus: modelli di indagine e strategie di intervento nei Monti Dauni

Maria Luisa Marchi, Giovanni Forte, Italo Maria Muntoni, Alessandro De Leo

Abstract

This paper presents the ongoing Ager Lucerinus project, as part of the Archaeological Map of Italy - Forma Italiae project. The main aim of the study was to undertake a complete historical reconstruction of the cultural landscape of the colonial territory of Luceria (Apulia), including the border area between the Tavoliere and the Daunian Subappennines. The extensive and systematic survey of the whole study area was combined with the collection of GPS georeferenced data integrated into an ad hoc GIS. All monumental and structural archaeological features, as well as scattered materials on the surface were georeferenced, their shapes and sizes perfectly represented. The paper also illustrates the project to safeguard the settlement at Chiancone (Pietramontecorvino) as a representative example of the synergy between Universities, the Superintendency and local authorities. The survey allowed us to identify a vast settlement dating back to the 5th-4th centuries BC. The extensive archaeological excavations undertaken in 2012 and 2014 confirmed the presence of a Daunian settlement and brought to light the earthen grave of a warrior, characterised by the richness of the grave goods. These data are also of great importance for understanding the boundaries and the connections between the so-called Daunian and Samnite territories, also confirmed by ancient literary sources.

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