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The logicist program, which was initiated in the 1970s by J.C. Gardin, aims to clarify the reasoning processes in the field of archaeology and to explore new forms of publication, in order to overcome the growing imbalance between the flood of publications and our capacities of assimilation. The logicist program brings out the cognitive structure of archaeological constructs, which establishes a bridge between empirical facts or descriptive propositions, at one end of the argumentation, and interpretative propositions at the other. This alternative form of publication is designed to highlight the chain of inference and the evidence on which it stands. In the case of the logicist publication of the archaeological excavation in Rigny (Indre-et-Loire, France), our workflow can provide different levels of access to the content, allowing both speed-reading and in-depth consultation. Both the chains of inference and the ArSol database containing the field records that provide evidence for the initial propositions are visualized in a diagram structure. We rely on the International Committee for Documentation Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC CRM) entities for ensuring the semantic interoperability of such publications within the Linked Open Data. Inference chains are mapped to CRMinf and ArSol records are mapped to CRM, CRMSci and CRMArcheo. Moreover, as part of the work carried out by the French Huma-Num MASA Consortium, a project is underway to allow the building of logicist publications starting from a graphical interface for describing the structure and content of propositions.

This paper proposes an ontological approach to connect the archaeological topographic evidence for movement in the landscape which can be derived from interpretation and spatial analysis of airborne lidar data with models of movement derived from modeling exercises such as Agent Based Modelling or Cost Path Modelling. This computational ontology enables the investigation of movement and its topographic manifestations in the landscape at various spatio-temporal scales. It creates an explicit framework for accessing meaningful information about movement generated through research using both detection and modelling-led approaches. Developing explicit computational frameworks to provide meaningful context is critical, particularly as remote sensing and modelling projects increase in scale and complexity. The process of developing a computational ontology exposes a deeper underlying issue, and one applicable to many topics we address as archaeologists: if we begin to unpack the concept of ‘movement’ it is readily apparent that it is a complex phenomenon, like many human habits, and studying it requires drawing together a variety of types of physical evidence and multiple, often competing, theoretical models of human processes and practices. If we wish to make archaeological ‘data’ on movement available, how do we create appropriate contextual information – really useful metadata – so that this data can be incorporated into the variety of studies for which knowledge of movement is relevant? This is essentially the challenge posed broadly by the FAIR principles, and in particular by the principle of interoperability, which suggests that we “use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation”. Rather than simply seeking to fulfill the requirements of an arbitrary standard, attempting to meet the challenge of interoperability provides an impetus and opportunity to attempt to bridge the gap between data and model, and to reconsider how we conceive and represent knowledge in archaeological digital data and modelling projects. This kind of computational ontology, we suggest, can serve as the key for making the data from both these sources actually FAIR.

The amount of information available to archaeologists has grown dramatically during the last ten years. The rapid acquisition of observational data and creation of digital data has played a significant role in this “information explosion”. In this paper, we propose new methods for knowledge creation in studies of movement, designed for the present data-rich research context. Using three case studies, we analyze how researchers have identified, conceptualized, and linked the material traces describing various movement processes in a given region. Then, we explain how we construct ontologies that enable us to explicitly relate material elements, identified in the observed landscape, to the knowledge or theory that explains their role and relationships within the movement process. Combining formal pathway systems and informal movement systems through these three case studies, we argue that these systems are not hierarchically integrated, but rather intertwined. We introduce a new heuristic tool, the “track graph”, to record observed material features in a neutral form which can be employed to reconstruct the trajectories of journeys which follow different movement logics. Finally, we illustrate how the breakdown of implicit conceptual references into explicit, logical chains of reasoning, describing basic entities and their relationships, allows the use of these constituent elements to reconstruct, analyze, and compare movement practices from the bottom up.

Forests are environments favourable to the conservation of anthropogenic vestiges because the action of erosion is less marked in forests than in open areas. The archaeological work conducted in these forests focuses on all kinds of vestiges preserved by the cover of vegetation as well as human forestry activities (Dupouey et al., 2007). These two approaches were used within the framework of the SOLiDAR programme, namely thanks to the LiDAR remote detection survey conducted during the winter of 2015, the first findings of which are presented here. The area studied includes the Chambord national estate and the state-owned forests of Boulogne, Russy and Blois, representing a woodland area of close to 25 000 hectares. In addition to pedestrian surveys conducted over a period of 15 years, the LiDAR survey made it possible to identify vestiges which are invisible to the naked eye and which concern the former exploitation of the forest as well as prior human settlements. This diachronic approach, combining sources widely used by archaeologists (archaeological digs and excavations, archives, geomorphological and ecological surveys) and LiDAR technology makes it possible to use regressive analysis in the long-term study of forestry landscapes.

In pre-industrial society, wine and food crops are under competition for space. Fertile soils are generally used for grains, vineyards are grouped in poor lands where cereal does not grow (Dion 1952). In our society space is hardly specialized in the market around mass production for favorable to trades (Hinnewinkel 2004). Using agent-based modeling, we explore territorial strategies regarding controlled simulation parameters.We can take care of the shift occurring on a virtual territory between food crops and vineyards. To us it’s a way to question spatial historicity in agricultural land cover dynamics.

Urban areas located in floodplains offer a great geo-archaeological potential for the comprehension of fluvial dynamics on long term and its relationship with land occupation, as they allow exploiting many survey data of the basement. In the floodplain of Tours, shared by the River Loire and Cher river, relations between human societies and environment are the subject of an interdisciplinary work within the frame of an archaeological program initiated in the late 1960’s. A sedimentary database including 1309 surveys has been created then exploited in a geographic information system to produce geomorphological and geostatical models. The stratigraphy and chronology of the alluvial filling were also studied with surveys and 14C and OSL dating obtained in the course of archaeological prospections. The combined results provide a new reading of the morphological evolution of the floodplain of Tours from the Weichselian to nowadays.

The archaeological diagnostic consists in assessing the archaeological potential of an area impacted by development. This first phase aims to provide sufficient information -on the nature, extent, chronology and degree of preservation of the sites- to the competent authorities (in France, the Ministry of Culture) in view to prescribe or not an excavation.Beyond the assessment of archaeological potential, they deliver diachronic information on land-use whose exploitation is often restricted. In the case of large areas surveyed, we let’s suppose that the data mining is useful for archaeological interpretation of the site.This paper presents the methods and results of an experiment based on data from a 226 ha archaeological survey performed at Etrechet in Indre (Centre of France). The aim was to evaluate the contribution of spatial analysis, on one hand to read the results of the trial trenching, secondly to understand the land-use in the studied area. The experiment focused on the use of exploratory spatial data analysis. The methods used are both cartographic with the grid analysis and statistic with data clustering. The aim of this methods is to overcome the division imposed by the trial trenches, and consider the whole area.Results show that it is possible to test interpretive hypothesis on the distribution of the remains. Indeed spatial analysis reveals patterns by periods, confronted to the essential archaeological interpretation. The results meet the two objectives of an archaeological assessment. First, they are useful to interpret the remains and to understand the dynamics of land-use. Secondly, as decision-making tool, they provide elements for the authorities to deal with the archaeological sites (excavations or preservation).

The proposed principle for understanding the urban fabric is based on considering the town as a set of complex objects, taking a systemic approach. The town system used to study the urban fabric over large time spans is composed of three sub-systems relating to historical objects from the level of the excavation to that of the former urban space: function (social use), space (location, surface area and morphology) and time (dating, duration and chronology). The historical object is the analytical unit of the space studied. It is the Cartesian product of the three sets, Social use, Space and Time, from which it stems.On the basis of this process, the Historical Object (OH) is broken down into three types of simple object, functional (EF), spatial (ES) and temporal (ET).- The thematic approach to the OH in an urban environment is based on social use, organized according to a hierarchical thesaurus.- Space, the most formalized of the three sets, is structured on the model of a planar topological graph without isthmi.- Time, always considered as continuous and linear, will be modelled by analogy with space using temporal topology defined in the field of artificial intelligence.The relationships between these three sets each characterize an interaction (social use-space, social use-time, time-space, or function-space-time). In addition to reconstructing the OH, they allow urban changes to be observed by analyzing the distributions and mapping of each of the entities singly or two-by-two. The originality of this procedure lies in its approach whereby it is possible to start not from the mapping of a phenomenon at a time t1 and comparing it to that at a time t2, but to look at it in the same way whether its input is social use, space or time. The heuristic value of this modelling lies in the shift from description (what, where, when) to understanding the phenomena of change (how, why).