Scrivere O Riscrivere L/'archeologia Teoria, Tecnologia E Società ...
The Arkeotek Project
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SCRIVERE O RISCRIVERE L’ARCHEOLOGIA
TEORIA, TECNOLOGIA E SOCIETÀ DELL’INFORMAZIONE
WRITING OR REWRITING ARCHAEOLOGY
THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION SOCIETY
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Archeologia e Calcolatori
The Arkeotek Project
15, 2004, 25-40
THE ARKEOTEK PROJECT:
A EUROPEAN NETWORK OF KNOWLEDGE BASES
IN THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF TECHNIQUES
The web is rapidly becoming a major transmission tool. The Arkeotek
project is closely bound up with it in matters of communication, but it empha-
sises another item of our agenda in this journal, namely the representation and
consolidation of knowledge extracted from different sources in special areas of
archaeological research. Let us first dwell a little on this distinction.
1. ON VARIOUS USES OF THE WEB
When discussing actual or potential uses of the web, one should distin-
guish the following categories of applications. (A) Most of them aim mainly at
providing a broader and easier access to scattered information sources through
their storage on one or several web sites. The emphasis is on the communica-
tion process itself and the modern technology which aims to improve it through
the digitalisation of printed sources (texts, images, etc.). The progress achieved
thus is enormous; but it is due for the most part to experts in computer science
and technology, without much participation from scholars in the humanities
except for some effort in mastering the proper software.
Category B includes the kind of computer applications that were innova-
tive fifty years ago in the field of scientific information in general, and that have
since become common in archaeology as elsewhere, e.g. retrieval-oriented data
banks (bibliographic or factual), current awareness newsletters, etc. Their dis-
tinctive feature is a varying degree of reliance on linguistic or metalinguistic tools
(indexing languages, thesauri, etc.) that are used in pre-editing the recorded sources
and/or the requests addressed to them in natural language. A network compo-
nent is often present in such applications, when the input of information or data
is divided between different persons or institutions according to a scheme and a
set of standards agreed by all participants in the network1.
1 A good example of such a network in the humanities is the ACHEMENET project
launched recently by Pierre Briant (Collège de France, Paris). Its field of interest is the
history of the Achaemenid empire that ruled over a large part of Western Asia between
the 6th century B.C. and Alexander the Great’s conquests at the end of the 4th century
B.C. The mass of relevant sources, textual and archaeological, is enormous; its treatment
calls for a variety of skills that are seldom found in the same person, whereas the number
of scholars actively engaged in Achaemenid research throughout the world is relatively
small. The case for a cooperative information network is therefore clear, especially since
the population of potential users is inversely very large, given the impact of the Achaemenid
empire on the fate of many peoples in the ancient world, from Greece and Egypt to India
and Central Asia (http://www.achemenet.com).
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The two categories of computer applications hitherto considered have
no impact on the present form of archaeological publications, except for the
occasional addition of tags or markers of various kinds to the original sources.
In contrast, the major characteristic of category C is that the transition from
paper to electronic support is associated with a reorganisation of the original
texts, different from their usual presentation. The case for this reorganisation,
however, is neither a consequence nor a requirement of computerisation; it
precedes it, both logically and historically, as we shall recall shortly (§ 2).
A subsidiary but no less important characteristic of category C is that the
network component is here a quasi-inevitable development of the proposed
changes. In the long run, the restructuring of our modes of publication cannot be
dissociated from a revision of communication patterns in the archaeological world.
It logically leads to more advanced implementations of the principle of shared
knowledge to which all scientists subscribe; the use of the web plays in that
context a crucial role. The Arkeotek project is a product of this twofold perspec-
tive; let us first recall briefly the arguments developed over the years in its favour.
2. THE LOGICIST PROGRAMME: A REMINDER
The logicist programme is the name given to a long-term research project
launched in the late ’70s in France, with the support of CNRS (Centre na-
tional de la recherche scientifique) and EHESS (École des hautes études en
sciences sociales), aimed at sharpening our understanding of the mechanisms
and foundations of archaeological reasoning. It first proposed a method for
bringing out the logico-semantic structure of interpretative constructs found
in the archaeological literature, irrespective of their geo-linguistic origins or
ideological affiliations. The principles and findings of this ongoing programme
have been exposed many times (for the more recent progress reports, see
GARDIN 2002 in French and 2003 in English); the following summary is merely
meant to provide readers of this paper with the minimal knowledge needed
to understand the purport of the Arkeotek project.
A. Archaeological theories are considered in the logicist approach as computa-
tional structures made up of the two following constituents: (a) a data base, i.e.
a set of declarative propositions {Po} relating to objects or phenomena in the
outer world, presented as descriptions of the material under study or intro-
duced in the course of the argument to ground a particular inference; (b) an
inference tree made up of rewrite formulas “(IF) p (THEN) q” expressing the
steps observed in written discourse as an author goes from one set of proposi-
tions {Pi} (declared or previously established in the argument) to another set
{Pj}. A bridge is thus established between the declarative propositions of the
data base and the conclusions or hypotheses put forward by the author, through
a succession of leaps from one or several levels of the inference tree to the next.
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Such a tree can be designed or read in two alternative directions: empirico-
inductive, from the data base {Po} to the conclusions {Pn}, or hypothetico-
deductive, from the hypotheses {Pn} to the data base {Po}2.
B. The primary objective of such reformulations is to express the logico-
discursive structure of archaeological theories, from an epistemological view-
point. No practical developments were initially envisaged: the adoption of a
computational framework was not in our mind a warning sign of computer
applications to come3. Yet, the condensation process inherent in logicist analy-
ses did suggest alternative forms of publication: a whole chapter was devoted
to the subject in our source book (GARDIN 1979-1980, chapter 6). Further,
the homology later observed between logicist models and the format of knowl-
edge bases in expert systems gave support to the idea that those models could
be regarded as the core component of archaeological constructs from a cog-
nitive viewpoint (GARDIN et al. 1987).
C. More examples followed to illustrate the possible rewriting of articles or
(parts of) books as logicist models (ex.: BORGHETTI 1995; GARDIN 1998, 171-
180). The recording of such models on an electronic support was announced
in this journal as the next step (GARDIN 1999, 69-71), in connection with the
work in progress of a team of archaeologists and experts in editorial comput-
ing under the guidance of Valentine Roux. The first publication of this team
was purposely designed as an hybrid (ROUX 2000). Its most conspicuous part is
a thick book (ca. 500 pages) devoted to the study of ancient beads from Bronze
age sites of the Indus Valley and adjacent areas – a traditional publication, in
which several authors present their respective findings about the meaning of
those beads from different viewpoints: technology, division of labour, social
stratification, economics, international trade, etc. The less visible part is a CD-
ROM enclosed in the book, which means to express its cognitive substance
(data and inference tree) in a 2-dimensional format inspired by logicist models;
its goal is to meet the requirements of future consultants of the work, taking
advantage of the navigational facilities of hypertext.
The juxtaposition of the two parts enables anyone to assess their equiva-
lence in strictly cognitive terms.
D. “Consultants” of the CD-ROM are thus implicitly distinguished from “read-
ers” of the book. The truth of the matter is that we have our own doubts as to
whether books such as the one just described are likely to have many readers at
all, in the true sense of the word. The reason is not only that much of the ar-
2 This summary is itself a summary of the summaries given in the latest progress
reports mentioned in the preceding footnote… For a more detailed account of the meth-
odology, see the original presentation of the logicist programme (GARDIN 1979-1980).
3 For a largely similar framework inspired by the same epistemological concerns in
another discipline, see CARTMILL 2002.
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chaeological prose is indeed tough reading; more deeply, it is the consequence of
a growing imbalance between the volume of works currently published in our
respective fields of research, however “narrow” we humbly declare them to be,
and the limited time available to acquaint ourselves with their content. This
phenomenon has been stressed on many occasions, in the natural sciences as
much as in the humanities; and most of us in archaeology seem to acknowledge
it in private, despite brave attempts to dismiss the question by admitting that, “of
course”, we do not read the larger part of those works but only skim through
them when needed in relation to our particular interests, with any help we may
get from indexes, abstracts and the like. In other words, we produce a literature
in written form as if it were to be read, even though we are perfectly aware of the
fact that its “users” are likely to act as ourselves, i.e. to consult it or parts of it
according to their concerns of the moment. The implication is that a large part of
our prose is at best unnecessary, or worse an obstacle to the requirements of
scientific research. One of the goals of the logicist programme is to explore new
forms of publication intended to get over that enduring inconsistency.
We should be helped in this by an imbalance of another sort, between
the rising number of scholarly articles or books approved for publication by
various jurys and the limited budgets on which scientific publishers are ex-
pected to operate. Surely enough, the hybrid publication mentioned above (§
2, C) did cost more to the publisher than the traditional book alone, for
obvious reasons… But it was intended merely as a preparatory step towards
the next phase of our publication programme described below, in which the
part of the written text is considerably reduced (§ 3). Comparative estimates
are as yet insufficient; but the general anticipation is that the financial straits
of scientific publishers will eventually be much reduced in the process.
Let us however end this section on a less optimistic note, intended to
convey the true dimension of the present issue. The following extract brings
it out in so forceful terms that we feel no shame in citing it once more, rather
than risking our own version of the modern “information crisis”4. The au-
thor is a distinguished physicist, Pierre Joliot, who lectures on cellular
bioenergetics at the Collège de France in Paris. «Researchers have not waited
for the development of communication networks to be swamped by a flood
of publications which exceed their capacities of assimilation. Even if we limit
ourselves to articles published in scientific journals, it has long been impossi-
ble to accumulate all the available information in one’s own domain […]
While the communication and information technology develops explosively,
the capacities of our brain to acquire, store, assimilate and produce informa-
tion remain unchanged […] hence a growing inadequacy between those tech-
4 The matter is addressed more fully in our last progress report, quoting the same
extract (GARDIN 2003, 5-6).
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niques, more and more efficient, and man, whose biological characteristics
remain stable» (JOLIOT 2001, 86-87). In other words, the crisis is essentially
an ecological one, deeply linked – as most ecological issues raised in the last
decades – to growth factors that we seem unable to control, including the
most weighty and least discussed demographic factor implicit in P. Joliot’s
argument5. The resistance of many in the humanities to the adaptative changes
envisaged here is but a local aspect of this general inability (infra, § 5.5, 5.6).
3. POST-2000 TRENDS
A number of positive features have emerged in the last three years, in
the wake of V. Roux’s “hybrid” publication, which led to the Arkeotek project.
A. A decisive factor was the support received from one of the major publishers
in the human sciences, the Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in
Paris. The historian Maurice Aymard, president of this institution, had initially
taken the risk to allocate a substantial part of his budget to the publication of
the work presented by V. ROUX et al. (2000), despite the lack of enthusiasm on
the part of respectable advisers. He later agreed to go along with our next,
more ambitious proposal concerning the creation of a new collection devoted
to the same cause, namely the testing of new forms of multimedia publications.
A number of potential authors were contacted, ready to undertake the rewrit-
ing of their unpublished theses in a logicist format with the help of the direc-
tors of the collection, Valentine Roux and Philippe Blasco. A private firm founded
by the latter, “Épistèmes”, went into partnership with the Éditions de la Maison
des Sciences de l’Homme for the purpose. The name chosen for the collection,
“Référentiels”, picks out the major idea behind that project, from a conceptual
viewpoint, which is to publish not only data but also the reasoning processes
built upon them, in the hope that either or both will be used by researchers
active in comparable fields of discourse.
The first volume in this collection came out last year (GELBERT 2003); it
deals with a standard methodological problem in studies of ancient pottery,
which may be summarised as follows. Archaeometric data are currently used in
support of hypotheses about ancient techniques of pottery-making and their
diffusion in various parts of the world; to what extent is it possible to strengthen
such theories on the basis of ethnographical evidence [coming in this case from
West Africa]? More precisely, among the various inferences p - - - >q drawn by
the author in her ethnoarchaeological construct, which ones would we be
prepared to regard as potential rules of reasoning, whether “universal” or
more likely context-dependent, local in this sense? And in the latter case, are
5 On the role of this factor in the major issues of our times, see the excellent
analyses by Susan GEORGE (2000).
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we able to specify in operational terms the characteristics of the “context”
(or boundary conditions) that should be included in the premises p of such
rules in order to legitimate their application in archaeology?
To be honest, tight discussions took place between A. Gelbert and the
directors of the collection regarding the conversion of her thesis into a logi-
cist construct and its transcription in the hypertext format devised by Ph.
Blasco. However, the mutual benefits drawn from the exercise were acknowl-
edged by all, as well as the utility of more debates of the same kind apropos
of the next publications to come in the same series, on other subjects.
B. A second positive factor was the consensus reached by all parties – publishers,
directors of the collection and prospective authors – about the editorial formula.
It was agreed not to repeat the initial experiment by V. ROUX et al. (2000), com-
bining a traditional book, unchanged, and its rewriting as a logicist construct on
a CD-ROM. The CD-ROM should from now on be conceived as the core of the
publication, intended for researchers alone, without any need to refer to the
original material from which it was drawn (text and illustrations). But it was also
agreed that a book was still needed, only much less voluminous than our usual
publications – theses or others – and invested with functions of its own, other
than those of the CD-ROM. Authors are invited to deal in their own style with
any subject matter not explicitly covered in the CD-ROM, such as research ob-
jectives, state-of-the-art reviews, matters of strategy, methodological issues, per-
sonal narratives relevant to the research project, etc.
Ideas are likely to differ as to the relative weight that should be given to
circumstantial information of that sort, in printed form, in addition to the sub-
stantial knowledge recorded on an electronic support. In fact, it may prove diffi-
cult for some time to prevent a misconception of the relation between the two
parts, the tendency being to repeat in the book the argument articulated in the
hypertext, while conceiving of the CD-ROM as essentially a relatively cheap
way to store as many illustrations as possible, even if not directly relevant to the
theoretical construct. The dividing line should come out more clearly in the long
run, as the complementary but distinct functions of electronic and printed forms
of publication become more widely understood and accepted (§ 5.4).
C. The launching of a collection implies on the part of its promoters a rea-
sonable hope that there exists not only a “market” but also a number of
potential authors willing to feed their own work into it, for some reason or
other. A common one is the legitimate desire to take advantage of a possible
outlet for unpublished material, the price to pay in this case being a readiness
to invest some intellectual effort in the conversion process discussed above.
This perspective alone, however, may act as a deterrent since researchers are
mostly ill-prepared for that kind of task – an obstacle to which we shall re-
turn further on (§ 5.5). Another possible motivation is an inborn or acquired
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fascination for computer processing in general; but this interest or skill does
not necessarily go together with an aptitude for the kind of reflexivity that is
here needed. A more interesting phenomenon in this connection is the fact
that the theoretical issues highlighted over the years by the logicist programme
seem now to be shared by a number of archaeologists in different institutions
and countries; the Arkeotek project described below is a sign among others
of this changing Zeitgeist.
D. A comparable evolution can be traced in the growing concern for matters of
practical epistemology among scholars in the social sciences and the humani-
ties. The word “practical” underlines a departure from the broader questions
addressed over the years in philosophical circles in the name of epistemology.
A more matter-of-fact approach is put forward, consisting of inquiries into the
foundations of theoretical constructs in specialised fields of science, necessarily
conducted by the researchers themselves rather than philosophers with no di-
rect experience of such fields. A number of seminars have taken place in this
direction from the ’90s onwards, in which the logicist programme was amply
discussed (summaries in GARDIN 2002, 21-24; 2003, 8-10). An additional ref-
erence should be mentioned, directly relevant to our present topic: a work-
shop was held in 2003 at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, on the
invitation of its president Maurice Aymard, to confront the viewpoints of schol-
ars interested in matters of practical epistemology in their respective disci-
plines, both in the natural and in the social sciences6.
4. THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION ARKEOTEK
The preceding pages provide the background from which the Arkeotek
project took shape in the first years of this century. The following account is
largely made up of extracts from documents distributed to members of the
European association which took that name at the time of its creation in
December 2002.
4.1 The project7
The objective of the association ARKEOTEK (European Association for
the Archaeology of Techniques) is to create an infrastructure for the intensive
sharing of research findings through the development of knowledge bases in
6 “Sciences de la nature et sciences de l’homme”, 18th november 2003, prepared by
the sociologist Claude Grignon who had initiated a seminar of two years on that subject
– a follow up in many ways of the one which he had previously organised on Models and
Narratives (GRENIER et al. 2001).
7 The English version presented in this section is a translation by J.-C. Gardin of a
text written in French by Valentine Roux.
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the universe of discourse described as “the archaeology of techniques”. The
focal point of this infrastructure is the site of the association on the Internet; it
provides the instruments and the means of communication of the association.
The Arkeotek project does not aim simply at the digitalisation and net-
working of a set of texts related to the archaeology of techniques. The idea is
not to establish an on-line library of electronic texts, accessible through a
search engine working on keywords or full text. Electronic publications are
here regarded as a working tool allowing a community of dispersed scholars
to work in a cooperative and cumulative fashion and to publish the results of
their research through a world wide network.
With this aim in view, the association Arkeotek publishes rewritten texts
through a multimedia set-up that speeds up the assimilation of their logico-
discursive structure and the consultation of the data bases which they mobi-
lise. This editorial form follows the principle of Hypertext; it applies to the
articles published in the electronic journal Arkeotek as well as to all the other
texts published by the association.
4.2 The Hypertext principle
This hypertext principle is used for research, publication and commu-
nication activities related to works in the archaeology of techniques:
a) a research hypertext because it aims at allowing all archaeologists to con-
sult on the Internet theoretical constructs and the associated data banks in
that field. It thus creates a proper structure for the organisation of knowl-
edge bases and archives and for setting up in this way a shared networked
laboratory in which researchers have a direct access to the primary sources
of their work.
b) A hypertext for publication: first, it provides an easy access to the scientific
or cognitive content of texts, meeting thus some of the issued raised by the
overproduction of scientific publications8. Second, it should help to reduce
the technical and economic strains of publishing. The logicist reduction of
texts in natural discourse leads to considerably shortened versions, while
the multimedia support makes it possible to publish large quantities of data
especially graphic, non-verbal data. The diminution of costs is also patent
when it comes to translating those shortened versions in several languages.
c) This kind of hypertext thus becomes a means of communication between
researchers, far more rapid and powerful than printed books and journals
published.
8 “Overproduxtion” in the sense earlier discussed, where this term refers to the imbal-
ance between rising Production rates and fixed Consumption capacities (supra, § 2, D).
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4.3 The SCD format
The Arkeotek activities can be edited in different formats. There exists
at present one operational format, SCD (Scientific Constructs and Data),
used first in the CD-ROM “Cornaline de l’Inde” (supra, § 3, A) and devel-
oped by the Éditions Épistèmes under Philippe Blasco. Priority is here given,
from an ergonomic viewpoint, to speed of consultation and understanding of
the interface as well as the minimisation of clicks. The logicist schematisations9
are consulted on four levels of reading, distributed among four screens.
– 1st screen. Overall structure. The first screen presents, for each chapter or
article, the successive stages followed by the author to reach his/her objec-
tive. These stages, or research plan, are properly speaking a guide on the
chain of propositions that make up a scientific construct, indicating in
thematic terms the set of propositions to be read in succession.
– 2nd screen. Quick reading of the results. The second screen offers a quick
reading of the different propositions established at each stage of the con-
struction. It lists side by side the successive stages and for each one of them
the successive propositions or strong points established. The information
content of propositions varies according to the phase of the construction
to which they belong. It can include:
a) circumstantial data, not central to the actual construct, but important
for understanding the subject of the study;
b) descriptive data used in the scientific [cognitive] construct;
c) methodological principles;
d) results.
– 3rd screen. “Arguments”. Each proposition is interactive and gives access to
a third screen which explains it by adding a commentary, an illustration or
a series of “arguments” listed on the left. The commentary is a paraphrase
indicating the relevance of the various arguments cited in support of the
proposition.
Arguments are of different sorts according to the content of the proposi-
tion which they support. In the case of a descriptive or methodological
proposition, “arguments” are complements of information; whereas in
the case of a proposition which introduces a result, “arguments” have a
demonstrative function, inasmuch as they represent the data that have
been brought in to infer the proposition. “Arguments” thus can be:
a) either a proposition previously established in the same construct;
9 Name given to the inferential trees mentioned above, §2, A. Schematisations are
defined by the Swiss logician J.-B. Grize as follows: «models generated through a dis-
course in natural language» (GRIZE 1974, 204).
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b) or an inference rule taken from an actualist referential; on the basis of
that rule, operations of various kinds (computations, attribute trans-
fers) are carried out on the archaeological data, the results being given
in the next arguments;
c) analytical results obtained from computations on the archaeological data.
– 4th screen. Data series. The fourth screen presents the data series brought
into play by interactive arguments. A commentary in natural language de-
scribes the content of the argument. The multimedia presentation of data
series has many advantages, both qualitative and quantitative:
Qualitative
a) The illustration of the different arguments helps to grasp rapidly their
semantic content. Thus, a series of images is an easy way to convey
quickly the various shapes covered by a morphological typology of
material objects. Or again, a series of diagrams helps to realise visually
the results obtained from various computations.
b) The documents (from which data series are extracted) can be of differ-
ent kinds: texts, tables, graphics of all sorts, videos, animations, etc. –
an important factor, given the diversity of documents used in the social
sciences and the humanities.
Quantitative. The possibility of recording a large number of such docu-
ments is beneficial in three respects:
a) First, epistemological: the analytical operations carried out in archaeo-
logical constructs often involve comparisons between series of data which
we should be able to check, at least to a certain extent.
b) Then, didactical: the initiation of students or researchers to the use of
analytical tools is made easier when a sizeable number of documents
can be produced and organised for the purpose.
c) Lastly, archival: one should be able to keep track of the data series that
have been used in a scientific construct. This requirement raises the deli-
cate question of the role of the researcher in such a task; the idea here is
an auto-archiving process in which the data series are provided and in-
dexed by the authors of scientific constructs as a by-product of their work.
4.4 Arkeotek publications on-line
The publications envisaged in Arkeotek include:
a) The Arkeotek journal, in which articles are modelled according to the SCD
format; the editorial concept is described in the regulations of the journal.
The launching of a new journal in archaeology – electronic or other – is
today a risky venture, for widely known reasons. Moreover, it would seem
to be at variance with the views expressed above regarding the “overpro-
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duction” of scientific papers (§ 2, D). The argument for the Arkeotek jour-
nal is that it should function as a kind of funnelling device for collecting the
building pieces of the Arkeotek network. Its functions is to publish the re-
sults of research in the archaeology of techniques, using actualist or other
ways of exploration applied to a variety materials (stone, bone, pottery,
textiles, shells, wood, etc.). The prehistorical and protohistorical periods
are favoured, given the sizeable number of technological studies conducted
for those periods; they make it possible to undertake from now on the con-
solidation of operational knowledge bases. The articles published in the
Arkeotek journal are thus intended to provide the data and logical struc-
tures that will form the substance of the Arkeotek network of knowledge
bases, expressed in the proper computer-oriented form.
b) Knowledge bases designed according to the Hypertext Arkeotek and com-
ing from various sources:
– articles in the Arkeotek journal;
– monographs edited by European publishers according to the SCD format;
– texts already published which the Association wishes to be rewritten
according to its SCD format.
The Arkeotek journal and knowledge bases are multilingual. They will
naturally be subject to the norms of copyright: their modalities in Arkeotek
will be found on the Web site.
4.5 The Arkeotek workshops
The aim of the Arkeotek workshops is to propose and discuss model-
ling projects aiming at the development of operational knowledge bases in
the archaeology of techniques. Those workshops are organised by members
of the Association active in that domain. They can be held either on the
Internet or physically. In the latter case, the workshops can take place in the
various European institutions represented by members of the Association.
4.6 The site Arkeotek
The site Arkeotek is a technological platform where the Arkeotek pub-
lications mentioned above will be available (§ 4.4), as well as scientific infor-
mation aimed at a cooperative network in the sense of both categories B and
C of computer applications, see § 1. In particular, information about the
statutes of the Association will be available on the site.
5. PROBLEMS, OBSTACLES
A broad variety of problems will have to be faced as the Arkeotek project
develops. Some of them are already with us at this early stage and will have
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to be met quickly. Others are more in the nature of obstacles that can only be
overcome in the course of time, depending as they do on institutional and
societal changes that are out of our control, much as we may wish to exert an
influence on them. This final section is an attempt to list them in that order
of increasing magnitude.
5.1 Language problems
In her call for contributions to this special issue, Paola Moscati pointed
out that the problems of language and description standards that had filled
the early literature in computing archaeology have «significantly come back
into discussion in the light of today’s consolidated diffusion of multimedia
communication». The implication is that those problems should by now be
well-known… Nothing will therefore be said about them in this paper, ex-
cept to confirm that the usual tools of information science in matters of mul-
tilingual communication will be made available through the Arkeotek net-
work as they take shape in connection with specific research projects.
Encoding concerns in the computer sense are sometimes included among
the “language” issues; and there is indeed a tendency on the part of experts
in computer science to bring together within a unique formal framework the
design of “standards” in the broadest sense, including both the symbols used
in research to make sense of empirical objects or phenomena and the symbols
used in computing to handle the former in world wide, field-independent
networks. This is not the place to go into this matter; let us however indicate
in passing that the popular reference to “ontologies” in this context seems to
introduce more confusion than clarity of purpose, to say the least.
5.2 Software progress
The SCD format designed by Philippe Blasco for Arkeotek has been
described above as an adaptation of the logicist model (§ 4.3). The author
insists that it is open to modifications according to the suggestions received
from archaeologists who have experimented with it as users of the electronic
publications expressed in that format – namely, the pilot work “Cornaline de
l’Inde” described above (§ 2, C), the collection “Référentiels” (§ 3, A) and
the Arkeotek publications to come. In fact, some adjustments have already
been proposed; others are expected as a result of ergonomic studies pres-
ently under way10. Matters of presentation and manipulation are of primary
importance in this period of transition from print to tape; no effort should
10 Ergonomic studies financed by CNRS (Cognitique/Programme Société de
l’Information) under the direction of Pascal Salembier (Institut de Recherche Informatique
et Technologique, CNRS, Toulouse).
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be spared to make it as “natural” as possible in the eyes and hands of those
who are expected to go willy-nilly through that evolution.
5.3 Theoretico-archaeological concerns
It may seem bizarre that concerns of that sort, which are the primary
source of the logicist programme, should come third in our list. The reason is
contained in a view again found in the announcement of this special issue: in
order «to further debate and highlight some theoretical aspects of computing
archaeology», we need to approach them «on the basis of current research
projects» linked to the use of modern information and communication tech-
nology. The Arkeotek workshops mentioned above (§ 4.5) are in keeping with
that strategy; the first ones, held in 2002 and 2003, have already proved fruit-
ful in the perspective of theoretical archaeology. Many more should follow,
depending on the progress of Arkeotek projects in the coming years, after the
more practical problems recalled under § 5.1 and 5.2 have been addressed.
5.4 The part of narrativity
A persistently neglected aspect of the logicist programme has been our
early emphasis on its limitations, especially with respect to the kind of public
interested in its development. It was made clear from the outset that research-
ers alone were concerned (as in Paola Moscati’s announcement of this special
issue). A further point consisted in taking up the case for literary versions of
historical constructs in general, wholly or partly based on archaeological find-
ings. Two reasons were put forward, the more obvious one being the mere
existence of both authors and readers interested in that particular genre since a
long time… A more stringent reason is the fact that professional historians and
archaeologists are prone to ignore the principles of scientific reasoning stricto
sensu, even if unknowingly, when presenting visions of the past that are meant
to amplify and in a certain way justify their scholarly works in their own eyes.
Instances of that trend could easily be found in works published by the
authors of the present paper, though without any pretence of qualifying as “lit-
erature”; but more illustrious examples cross every one’s mind, of books that
display the literary ambitions and skills of their authors in ways that are not
incompatible with the sternest form of scholarship11. The concept of narrativity
11 An enigmatic aphorism concludes Carlo Ginzburg’s recent presentation of the
case: «A supposer que l’histoire soit scientifique, encore faudrait-il la peindre comme
Elstir peignait la mer, par l’autre sens» (GINZBURG 1998, 36). Elstir, a character in A la
Recherche du Temps Perdu, is a painter whom Proust – or his narrator’s grandmother –
admires because «il nous présente les choses dans l’ordre de nos perceptions au lieu de les
expliquer d’abord par leur cause» (op. cit., 31; we shy away from translating into English
the French translation of Ginzburg’s Italian). The difference between “presenting” and
“explaining” has something to do with our distinction between the narrative and the
cognitive components of scholarly constructs recalled further on.
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embraces both variants and the continuum between them; the study of its place
in archaeology is an integral part of the logicist programme, announced a long
time ago (GARDIN 1979-1980, 178-180; 295-300) and abundantly developed in
the last years (GARDIN 2001a, b). Thus, our goal is in no way to eradicate narrativity
from archaeological publications, in our so-called «extremely narrow, reduc-
tionist and positivistic view of the subject of archaeology» (STUTT, SHENNAN 1990,
766), but rather to reach a deeper understanding of its specific function, distinct
from the cognitive function of logicist constructs. A tentative separation of the
narrative and cognitive parts of historical discourse is materialised in the collec-
tion “Référentiels” described above (§ 3, A). Unexpectedly enough, a similar
distinction has recently been recommended by Paul Ricoeur himself (RICOEUR
2000), notwithstanding his dogged position of former times about their insepa-
rability in the human sciences (summary in GARDIN 2003, 10).
5.5 Matters of training and education
We had once thought that the spread of the “computer literary” among
archaeologists would make it easy for them to master the proposed reshap-
ing of archaeological communication, marked as it is by the computational
paradigm. This belief has not been wholly substantiated. True, no major
problems seem to arise as regards the computer manipulations needed for
the physical preparation of CD-ROMs or for their consultation by hyper-
text techniques. But matters become tricky when it comes to the elabora-
tion of the knowledge bases which are to be stored in CD-ROMs or in the
Web. The reformulation of one’s own construct (text and illustrations) in
terms of an inference tree is not a straightforward task, owing to ingrained
habits of natural discourse and rhetorical usage; and a proficiency in com-
puters is of little avail for the accomplishment of that essentially intellec-
tual operation. In fact, the two aspects of multimedia communication pre-
sented in this paper, theoretical (epistemology) and practical (new technol-
ogy), are more or less independent: we should keep in mind that our vision
of publication issues emerged as a by-product of epistemological and meth-
odological concerns formulated at a time when CD-ROMs and Web sites
were unknown (supra, § 2, B). The implication is clear: the difficulties met
by many in converting natural discourse into logicist structures is a conse-
quence of the fact that an immersion in those concerns is wholly absent
from the training of archaeologists.
This situation is not likely to change rapidly, for a number of socio-
historical reasons that have nothing to do with archaeology as such, as we
shall recall below (5.6). Local answers will therefore have to be found out-
side the educational system for some time in order to overcome that particu-
lar obstacle. One of them has already been envisaged in the Arkeotek context
(supra, § 4.6); others should be sought as the European network develops.
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5.6 Socio-cultural moulds
The problem just raised takes us back to the well-known “Two cul-
tures” divide and later attempts to bridge it by introducing the human sci-
ences as a possible mediator between the two poles summarily designated as
Science and Literature. The relevance of that debate to our present perspec-
tive has been stressed more than once (references in GARDIN 2003, 8-9; 2004).
We need only recall one particular point more relevant than others to our
present subject, namely the special relation that binds the academic discourse
in the humanities to a broad “culture lettrée” generally impervious – putting
it mildly – to the perspective adopted in this paper (LEPENIES 1987). The
consequences of this bent or habit of mind on the mode of discourse recom-
mended in the human sciences have been aptly brought out by eminent thinkers
in the last years (GRIGNON 1996; BOUVERESSE 1999); they include many of the
factors that are likely to hinder for some time the evolution of communica-
tion patterns sketched out in this paper.
JEAN-CLAUDE GARDIN
VALENTINE ROUX
CNRS, Maison de l’Archéologie
Université de Paris X – Nanterre
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ABSTRACT
Two major features have lately emerged in the communication patterns of archaeo-
logical research: (a) an increasing use of the Web as a channel of information transfer, to
complement or occasionally replace printed publications; (b) an exploration of new forms
of archaeological discourse related to that trend. The Arkeotek project combines the two
approaches in a specific domain of archaeological research described as “the archaeology
of techniques” (hence its acronym). The present paper exposes the objectives and status
of the European association recently set up under that name (2002), as well as its initial
works and plans for the coming years. A comprehensive introduction deals with the ori-
gins and guiding principles of the project. The paper ends with a square review of the
problems that lie ahead.
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