An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology

Download or read book An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology written by Shawn Graham and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.