Discussion

Discussing the need for a new CAA Special Interest Group on chronological modelling

Thomas Huet, Eythan Levy, Florian Thiery, Allard W. Mees

Introduction

For Leibnitz, “time” groups events that follow one another, while “space” groups objects that coexist.

CAA

Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA)

• annual conferences with > 300 participants every year

CAA Special Interest Groups (CAA-SIG)

SIG https://caa-international.org/special-interest-groups/

• Complex Systems Simulation
• Computer Programs for Archaeologists
• Mobile GIS
• 3D spatial analysis
• Scientific Scripting Languages in Archaeology
• Semantics and LOUD in Archaeology
• Archaeological Practices and Knowledge Work
• Computationally Modeling Water-based Movement

CAA Special Interest Groups (CAA-SIG)

SIG https://caa-international.org/special-interest-groups/

• Complex Systems Simulation
• Computer Programs for Archaeologists
• Mobile GIS
• 3D spatial analysis
• Scientific Scripting Languages in Archaeology
• Semantics and LOUD in Archaeology
• Archaeological Practices and Knowledge Work
• Computationally Modeling Water-based Movement

CAA SIG SSLA and Data Dragons

• SSLA
• Data Dragons

Special Interest Group on Scientific Scripting Languages in Archaeology

Statement of need

Chronological turn

‘Monument druidique près de Gisors’ 1824

Stack of information layer in a GIS

In the 90’s, development of GIS in archaeology led to a “geographic turn” but no such a thing for the temporal dimension

CAA-SIG proposed framework

CAA-SIG workflow

• Asynchronous, Distributed
• Project-based

Git, distributed versioning:

• GitHub https://github.com ➡️ historical-time

• GitLab https://gitlab.com

Semantisation

• EDTF
• CIDOC-CRM
• SPARQL

Use of Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF)¹ as time primitives

Use of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC-CRM) to map the chronological assumptions

Use of Sparse Query Language (SPARQL)² to retrieve the information

  prefix rdf:     <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
  prefix skos:    <http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#>
  prefix dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>

  select ?id ?name
  where {
  ?concept skos:prefLabel ?name ;
           dcterms:identifier ?id .
  FILTER (lang(?name) = 'en-us')

EDTF is an extension of the previously seen ISO-8601 Date format. It allows an accurate record of time events and durations whatever their fuzzyness (seasons, before, etc.)

Outputs

Data papers

Facilitate the publication of human-machine readable papers of temporal data

Very unprecise

Very precise

Help in publishing data papers to go FAIR

Open talk

Footnotes

1. ISO 8601-2

2. ISO/IEC 9075-15