Using Computational Methods to Understand the Past in The Present - Juniper Publishers

Using Computational Methods to Understand the Past in the Present 

Authored by Juan A Barcelo

Cultural heritage is a wide concept; an expression of the ways of living developed by community and passed on from generation to generation (ICOMOS 2002). In this paper I examine the idea that “archaeological heritage” is the information we can extract from material evidence from the past with use of scientific analysis. As prehistoric stones and ancient potsherds do not speak for themselves, the transformation of archaeological material into scientific data and into explanatory knowledge is the most challenging aspect of modern archaeological methodology. New techniques based on artificial intelligence, virtual reality and reverse engineering are needed to approach cultural heritage in a explicitly functional way. The challenge is to demonstrate how we may put our knowledge of the past to beneficial use in helping people to understand where the present came from and shaping their way into some future.

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