Grand Designs: reflections on archaeology, the historic environment and the E-science programme

Dr William Kilbride

E-science? Eh?Collaboration? Data processingCan archaeology use these tools?

Co-ordinated problem solvingResource sharingVirtual organisationsAccess to scientific instrumentsGrid: data, access, computation

Hype?Mystery?

Is E-science different?

Gartner’s Hype Cycle: Helping William understand the E-science programme

Jargon is power! Helping William understand the E-science programme

Exclusive languageNot always clear what projects are doingComputing as discourseStandards should be controversialPolitical / industrial drivers

Hidden (overt) expectations of what arts and humanities are about?

In spite of all that … Can we use E-science tools to be better at archaeology?

Taken as read:Focus on archaeology needsAccess grid for meetings etcMoving large objects

Collaborative tools meets data gridComputational tools meets gridNeed to articulate needsNeed to be understood

Collaboration in e-space

Sharing data across multiple computersNot just httpDistributed file storesFederated databasesMulti-site use

Big (and small) researchChannel Tunnel Rail LinkHeathrow T5StanstedM74 …OASIS as an example

OASIS: what it used to be like …

Fieldwork unit

Print out Backlog Local Govt.

Print outNational MonumentsRecord

Backlog

Post

Post

In an ideal world the machines In an ideal world the machines should do the talking …should do the talking …

Fieldwork Print out Backlog Local Archive

govt

Print outNational agency

Backlog

Post

Post

But at each point where data is keyed in, it is validated by experts …

Local govt: local knowledgeIs this what it claims to be?Do we have monuments like that here?That’s the wrong parish nameThat field unit is no good

National Agency: national standardsIt’s not MIDAS compliantIt’s not like other recordsThe terminology is differentThat SMR is very good

So need to capture the validation process but eliminate the drudgery

Fieldwork

Local SMR

National Monuments Records

ArchSearch

OASIS record and report

Backlog and the rest of the country

Backlog bigger than front-log

Quality of grey literatureQuality of DC archaeology

Only grey literatureGeophysics? Survey?

Only DC archaeologyac.uk? DNA? C14? Dendro?

Closed processImport and export issuesOnly UKSharing data not processesSingle data source

Shared standards developmentIt works!Inherently collaborativeRoles and responsibilities clearMore records in the pipelineDC as big stickResolves duplicatesPersistent and pervasive

Not weaknesses:Areas for growth!

Strengths and weaknesses …

Computational power?

CPU resources from different machines are used to address a single problem:

Desktop scavengers or server grids

Geo-computation: viewshed (etc)Geo-temporal computation?Visualisation and recordingVR applicationsData mining and processingSimulation?Conservation and management

OthersContent-based image retrieval?Video and audio?William’s data mining example

Computational archaeology

How does it work?

Knowledge Map (classification)GatherersDocument Set (XML chunks)Text Mining Tools

Creates …Adaptive Concept Map

Every possible query already processedClick and browse instead of type and hopeVisualise the distribution of data against concepts

What’s the problem?

Scalability … Huge numbers of possible combinations5000 concepts and 1,000,000 documents = 50,000,000,000 possible combinations

Conceptually simpleHuge memory overheadsSpace is infinitely refined

Grand Designs: can archaeology, use the tools of the E-science programme

Dr William Kilbride

Of course we can! Only scratched the surface here…

Need to concentrate on archaeologyHype and jargon are problems but …CollaborationComputer processing:… both have a role in archaeology