event: <TAG 2.0/>: Archaeological theory in the light of contemporary computing

This session at TAG30 - the 30th Theoretical Archaeology Group annual meeting - is organized by Gareth Beale and Leif Isaksen. The session will be held at University of Southampton.

http://www.tagconference.org/content/tag-20-archaeological-t...

Though once peripheral to standard archaeological practise, computers have begun to reshape both our discipline and the way we think about it. Not only is their deployment ubiquitous in academia and the private sector, in less than a decade the internet has become the dominant medium of communication and dissemination. This forces us to reconsider the manner in which both archaeologists and the public engage with information and to discuss the opportunities and dangers which arise from digital archaeologies.

One of our chief goals will be to challenge the degree to which digital archaeology is synonymous with quantitative methods and their empiricist overtones. This is not intended as a criticism of either, but rather as an opportunity to reappraise the relationship between digital approaches and archaeological methodologies.

The session is intended to contribute toward an archaeological response to a rapidly changing and increasingly complex digital world. It will conclude with a panel discussion.

Semantics and the nature of data
Archaeological discourses are constrained by the semantics of our world-views in a variety of ways. Developments in computer science have increasingly enabled us to model the terms, categories and relationships that form these ontologies but open questions still remain. We would like to address such issues as

• The limits to (internal) representation and/or simulation of archaeological entities
• The challenges of explicitly modelling ontologies
• Theoretical implications of combining information from different discourses

Representation
Representations of archaeology tell us as much about our attitudes to our discipline and the world around us as they do about our interpretations of the past. Developments in computation have led to an expansion in the scope and prevalence of virtual representations of archaeology. In light of these changes we would like to address the following issues:

• Visual conventions in the age of Moore’s law: embracing change without sacrificing meaning.
• Conceptualising an interface between a perceptual present and a virtual past.
• Ways in which we categorise virtual representations of archaeology (e.g. GIS, Virtual Reality, charts and graphs, etc.)

Open & community access
Communication technology, and in particular the World Wide Web, has had an enormous impact on social dynamics in the developed world and its influence is increasingly felt in developing nations as well. We wish to discuss themes such as:
• The Web as a reinforcing and disruptive mechanism in heritage power structures
• Open Access rights to public and developer-funded research
• Multivocality and ‘trust’ in archaeological sourceswill be held at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Southampton.

About TAG
The Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) was founded as a national body in 1979 with the aim of promoting debate and discussion of issues in theoretical archaeology. Its principal activity is the promotion of an annual conference, traditionally held in December and organised so as to be accessible at low cost to research students and others.