Computer Science Concepts for Archaeologists

Roberto Bagnara
Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Parma
bagnara\@cs.unipr.it

Lecture #1

Abstract interpretation

Constraint satisfaction problems deal with the inference of hidden information.

Qualitative Temporal Reasoning: Allen 1983 finds 13 possible relations between two events A and B.

RCC8 (topology?): consistency checks about spatial relationships between objects.

Qualitative reasoning deals with incomplete knowledge, imprecision. Imprecision ≠ Uncertainty.

Emergence has to do with indetermination laws: if we measure all possible variables, then we have modified the state of the system.

Can we actually modify past, finite systems?
This sounds like a conceptualization of archaeological excavation: the more you want to know, the more you have to dig (and destroy)