Conference CAA 2025

https://2025.caaconference.org/, 2025-05-05/2023-05-09, Athens

S1: Chronological modelling II: formal methods and research software#

Eythan Levy, Thomas Huet

Time and its analysis are at the heart of archaeology: one of the main objectives of the archaeologist is the establishment of a temporal framework for a given layer, site or material culture. But archaeology covers such a wide range of cultures, dispersed both in time and space, that contextual chronological assessments are constructed using very different tools, languages and techniques. It creates as many different temporal and cultural frameworks as there are specialties, with notable differences in approaches depending on whether one is dealing with absolute or relative chronology, laboratory techniques or cultural approaches, deterministic or statistical methods (Buck and Millard 2004).

The principle of a Special Interest Group (SIG) on chronological modelling (SIG-CHRONO) has been approved by the CAA steering committee during the 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM), and a formal proposal for its creation will be presented at the 2025 CAA conference. The proposed session will be related to this new SIG, in order to explore a wide variety of research tools and techniques related to (semantic) chronological modelling in archaeology and to identify common methodological frameworks and to build bridges between specialties.

We strongly encourage submissions presenting new mathematical models and algorithms for handling chronological data, whether based on deterministic or probabilistic approaches (e.g., Bayesian methods, stratigraphic modelling, temporal logics; see: https://github.com/historical-time/caa-chrono-sig/tree/main/doc). Additionally, we welcome contributions focused on open-source and open-access software. Papers addressing interoperability between different chronological models (or their implementations) are also encouraged. This includes topics such as the use of ontologies (e.g., CRMarchaeo, SKOS), controlled vocabularies and time gazetteers (e.g., PeriodO, ChronOntology), and the application of ISO standards like Date and EDTF, in the framework of Linked Open Data.

Reference Buck, C.E. and Millard, A. 2004. Tools for Constructing Chronologies: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries. London.