Enchantment of Digital Archaeology

Raising the Dead with Agent Based Models, Archaeogaming, and Artificial Intelligence

Paperback, 210 pages

English language

Published June 30, 2020 by Berghahn Books.

ISBN:
978-1-78920-871-9
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The use of computation in archaeology is a kind of magic, a way of heightening the archaeological imagination. Agent-based modelling allows archaeologists to test the 'just-so' stories they tell about the past. It requires a formalization of the story so that it can be represented as a simulation; researchers are then able to explore the unintended consequences or emergent outcomes of stories about the past. Agent-based models are one end of a spectrum that, at the opposite side, ends with video games. This volume explores this spectrum in the context of Roman archaeology, addressing the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of a formalized approach to computation and archaeogaming.

The appendices to this book form an ABM (Agent-Based Model) teaching guide hosted on the Berghahn Books Digital Archaeology platform, with interactive code available on GitHub.

2 editions