editerranean Tracing Networks From

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1 to production-aware models of global computing Tracing Networks From craft traditions in the Ancient M editerranean

2 The research programme investigates t the network of contacts t across and beyond the Mediterranean region, between the late bronze age and the late classical period (c.1500-c.200 BCE) by interrogating material objects seven archaeological case studies fully integrated with computer science projects programme sets technological networks in their greater social, economic and political contexts to expand our understanding of wider cultural developments these networks from the past can help us devise new and more effective ways of transmitting knowledge and information in our digital world

3 Tracing Networks How does technical knowledge move from one person/group/society to another? How do people p choose which particular knowledge to use from the repertoire available? In what kinds of contexts does innovation appear?

4 Tracing Networks The concepts of chaîne opératoire and cross-craft interaction allow us to interweave technologies and their social meanings in studying networks of crafts-people in the past and in proposing new methodologies for developing production-aware service networks in global l computing. Archaeologists study a wide range of material objects.. By tracking them at every stage of their production, distribution, use, and consumption across a large geographical region, over a long time period, we can trace the links between the people who made, used, and taught others to make them. Through these objects we can follow the ways in which technical knowledge was embedded within a wide variety of intricate socio- political, economic and cultural networks across the Mediterranean region and beyond. Exploring these networks through archaeology allows us to develop a powerful metaphor for new computational models in which code and data mobility allow for software components to establish dynamic networks of production and distribution of services according to the availability of resources and opportunities for trade. That is, there is an opportunity for the chaîn opératoire of socio-economic models to be reflected in new computing paradigms so as to improve performance, resource consumption and distribution efficiency.

5 Networks of Technical Knowledge The Bigger Questions Archaeologists collect and organise data from the past to gather knowledge about how societies came to operate the way they do, helping us address pressing questions and issues we face today: How have individuals or groups of individuals learnt how to organise themselves? Why did some prosper while others collapsed? What are the dynamics of power, influence and the exchange of knowledge? In what kinds of contexts does innovation appear? Computer scientists devise new methods and techniques for creating systems that can exploit the power of computing devices and communication networks: How to create awareness of network conditions and location of resources to optimise the provision of services in the new global computing environments? In order to be able to program systems efficiently, these methods need to reflect our own culture and practices: What can we learn from the way our society came to use resources and respond to changing production and distribution conditions?

6 Technologies in social contexts Two key concepts Chaîne opératoire Cross-Craft Interaction allow us to develop comparisons across cultures and over time, and across disciplines to set technologies in their social contexts to explore networks of knowledge Craft traditions can be viewed as tools of communication, linked to identities

7 Chaîne opératoire Tracking all technological and social elements of the production, distribution and consumption of a specific commodity in relation to each other

8 Cross-craft interaction The ways in which multiple crafts studied d together th have a technological and social impact on each other via human interaction We interrogate objects through scientific analyses

9 New computing paradigms for dynamic networks today FOXHALL Loomweights Networks of everyday objects and their makers WHITBREAD Lefkandi pottery Networks over time: Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical BC BRYSBAERT Crafts at Tiryns C O L L A B O R A T I V E DATA FIADEIRO & TUOSTO Global ubiquitous computing METHODOLOGY REBAY-SALISBURY Human representations PM I N F R A S T R U C T U R E Resource-aware applications VAN DOMMELEN Punic ceramics Phoenicians, Greeks and indigenous groups HASELGROVE Coinage Networks extending beyond the Mediterranean HARDING Salt and amber

10 Advisory board PI: Foxhall Administrative structure RA: Strack Whitbread financial RA: Quercia Brysbaert (Athens) RA: Vetters Research Technician Alonzo Lopez RF Project Manager Rebay-Salisbury Van Dommelen Haselgrove RA: Krmnicek communication management Fiadeiro/Tuosto RA: Hong RA: Bocchi Harding RA: Roppa RA: Uckelmann

11 Weaving Relationships: loom weights and cross-cultural networks from Greek farm site from native grave Loomweights in indigenous Italic fabric Loom weights, made in cooking pot and plain ware fabrics, from classical Greek farmhouse, Metaponto, t probably bl for making industrial textiles Loom weights marked with fingerprints Punic-style footprint stamp 4 th c. BC loom weight, 6 th c. BC stamp, Metaponto, Italy. Matches 6 th c. lead figurine from Sparta, Greece.

12 Culinary relationships: cooking wares and cross-cultural networks Bronze Age to Iron Age transition at Lefkandi: diverse raw materials reflect differences in production technologies, and the consumption of both local and imported ceramics for utilitarian purposes (including cooking) End of the Greek Bronze Age: local adaptation following the collapse of palatial societies or foreign intrusion represented in cooking ware production technologies at the Menelaion and Lefkandi? Menelaion: Late Bronze Age Handmade Burnished cooking ware Menelaion: Handmade Burnished Ware with grog (pottery inclusions), atypical for Greek ceramic technology at this time Menelaion: Typical Late Bronze Age cooking fabric with quartz and limestone Under the microscope

13 Cross-Craft Interaction (CCI) in the Bronze Age East Mediterranean Pigment production ceramics, paintings, textiles, Social Chaîne Opératoire People s traces in their objects fingernails Range of CCI s: Ideas/styles Knowledge Procurement time/places Skills Techniques Materials Facilities/equipment Marketing strategies Egyptian blue pigment, coloured by copper ore metals Material Chaîne Opératoire Murex shells in plaster purple dye also used for textiles

14 Salt of the earth: the exotic and the everyday in Bronze Age Europe Amber from Bernstorf (Bavaria) genuine Linear B symbols? AMBER Salt was crucial for daily life but not everyone had access to suitable sources SALT Baltic amber in Greece Handmade pottery in Greece, derived from the Balkans? Many commodities were moved around the Bronze Age world, but the mechanisms of this movement are still largely unknown. The data gathered by this project will provide answers to this problem.

15 Mint condition: coinage and the development of technological, economic and social networks Political links Massalia s economic role linking Europe & the Mediterranean New maritime connections depicted Social and cultural networks? Tarentum (I) coin and Gundestrup (DK) cauldron Coins and Conquest Flamininus AV 197 BC Spreading technologies: Hubbed coin die copying Macedonian Phillipus

16 Colonial Traditions: Ceramic Production in Punic Sardinia, Ibiza and Sicily An indigenous Nuraghe settlement site Phoenician and Nuragic (indigenous Sardinian) pottery from central Sardinia Punic amphorae produced in west central Sardinia Indigenous pottery from Sicily Punic and Greek amphorae produced in Sicily

17 Human representations, identities and social relations in the Late Bronze and Iron Age of Central Europe Identity is how people see themselves and their social surroundings At Art evokes social expectations Hirschlanden (Germany) Frög (Austria) Mediterranean links The lyre player in bronze and pottery, in different decoration techniques Kuffern (Austria) Bologna-Certosa (Italy) Kleinklein (Austria) Reichersdorf (Austria) Schirndorf (Germany)

18 What is the chaîne opératoire of global computing? Social and economic metaphors have been a key factor for the success and uptake of software development techniques: in object-oriented programming, components cooperate through clientship in the same way as a village economy relies on direct interactions among people. in service-oriented computing, components use the dynamicity of web-based networks to shop around for the best service that they can get, as in the global economy. FIADEIRO & TUOSTO Global ubiquitous computing New modes of computation based on code and data mobility over wide area networks, are providing the means for components to move in order to take advantage of: resources available in other nodes to improve the quality of provided services faster or more reliable distribution channels enabled by better connectivity What is a good metaphor for these new modalities of interaction and production? A new computing paradigm based on resource-aware, competitive, opportunistic and selfish forms of computation and self-organisation.

19 Working environment: ontology and tools to provide a logical infrastructure and support classification and analysis/interpretation of very large amounts of data using mash up-technology to get the best out of databases in different formats this environment should ensure future collaboration of teams and enable future research by others The ontology of concepts (based on CIDOC-CRM) is being defined and will offer a uniform representation ti of data and findings of the archaeological projects through which unforeseen relationships among heterogeneous datasets may emerge semi-automatically

20 Tracing Networks An opportunity to fund innovative and exciting research that crosses established academic boundaries and UKRC divisions The data and collaborative infrastructure will have the potential to change radically current methodologies for handling and analysing large data sets in archaeological studies and will outlive the project, allowing other communities to have access to, benefit from, and contribute to our findings, thus expanding our understanding of the wider cultural developments that frame the way our societal networks evolve. What we are proposing is not normal science : we are taking to the limit a notion of network based on production, distribution and consumption of commodities, which we use to expand our understanding of wider cultural developments in human civilisation and, at the same time, to start shaping the organisation of computing networks of the future. Academic outputs will include publications and presentations at international events, as well as process calculi, mathematical models, and a methodology for the new computing paradigm. We will also train young researchers in an interdisciplinary area that offers the promise of better and fruitful interactions between the sciences and the humanities.

21 Ann Brysbaert & MelissaVetters Department of Museum Studies University of Leicester Peter van Dommelen & Andrea Roppa Department of Archaeology University of Glasgow José Fiadeiro & Yi Hong Department of Computer Science University of Leicester Lin Foxhall & Alessandro Quercia School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester ColinHaselgrove & Stefan Krmnicek School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester Katharina Rebay Salisbury School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester Emilio Tuosto & Laura Bocchi Department of Computer Science University of Leicester Ian Whitbread & Sara Strack School of Archaeology and Ancient History University of Leicester Anthony Harding & Marion Uckelmann Department of Archaeology University of Exeter