CAA/SSLA session at CAA 2026, Vienna (S31)

Organised by Eythan Levy and Martin Hinz

When: 2026-04-01,10:30-14:30 CEST
Where: Hörsaal 01, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Description

The official mission statement of CAA states:

“Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) is an international organization bringing together archaeologists, mathematicians, and computer scientists. Its mission is to encourage and facilitate dialogue between these disciplines, to provide an overview of the present state of the discipline, and to stimulate discussion to progress the field.” (emphasis ours)

Yet, in practice, mathematicians and computer scientists are still under-represented, and most contributions come from archaeologists as end-users rather than as co-developers of new methods. In the early days of computational archaeology, cross-disciplinary collaboration was more common. Especially in the seventies, the pioneering work of the 1970 Anglo-Romanian Conference on Mathematics in the Archaeological and Historical Sciences conference (Hodson, Kendall and Tautu 1971) brought together a whole array of mathematicians proposing concrete mathematical and computational solutions to archaeological problems. This period also saw the publication of the seminal work of Doran and Hodson on Mathematics and Computers in Archaeology (1975), which embodied the state-of-the art of computational/quantitative archaeology of the time — producing techniques such as seriation algorithms that remain influential today.

Since then, there have been notable breakthroughs, such as Bayesian approaches to radiocarbon dating (Buck et al. 1991; Bronk Ramsey 2009), the application of spatial point process models to settlement patterns, and the adaptation of phylogenetic and network-theoretical methods to study cultural transmission. Yet overall, the field has leaned more towards ready-made tools (GIS, network analysis, semantic modelling, AI applications) than to the joint development of novel mathematical or algorithmic frameworks.

This session aims to reinvigorate that dialogue. Our vision is a CAA that not only showcases applications but also nurtures collaborations where new mathematical models and computational techniques are developed for and with archaeology.

The intended round table would feature the following parts:

1. General introduction and problem statement (Levy and Hinz).
2. Short interventions by mathematicians, computer scientists, and archaeologists. Mathematicians and computer scientists would present techniques of their choice, which they feel might be of use for archaeology. The intention is, for the archaeological community, to discover techniques they might not be aware of, and which might have significant impact on future quantitative archaeological research. Archaeologists are also invited to present open problem statements: concrete case studies for which they failed to find practical quantitative or algorithmic solutions among the standard toolkits. Each intervention would consist of a short presentation, followed by a longer discussion with the audience.
3. Brainstorming part. General discussion, hoping to find convergences between the exposed archaeological needs and available computational techniques presented.

We invite colleagues from all three disciplines to participate actively, especially in presenting open problems or potential solutions. Colleagues wishing to present either a mathematical/computational technique of their choice, or an open problem, are invited to submit an abstract to the session via the conference’s standard abstract submission system.

Presentations

0. Introduction to the session Eythan Levy, Martin Hinz

1. Herculaneum Scrolls Ink Detection Using Textural Features
   Oleksandr Korotetskyi and Michal Haindl

2. Probabilistic Geometric Joining for Fragmented Paper: An Algorithmic Pipeline with Markov Assembly under Minimal Supervision Terrindeep Sandhu, Deborah LaCamera, Heini Korhonen, Kay Horak, Lorraine Bigrigg, Marie Lassaigne

3. Multiple testing of local maxima for detection of post holes Valentina Cammarata

4. What Can Ecological Statistical Methods Bring to Archaeological Research Fabrice Rossi

5. Evolutionary Algorithms: An untapped resource for archaeologists? Mathys du Plessis

Reference

• Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1): 337–360.

• Buck C.E., Kenworthy J.B., Litton C.D., Smith A.F.M. 1991. Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration. Antiquity 65(249):808–21.

• Doran, J. E., Hodson, F. R. 1975. Mathematics and Computers in Archaeology. Edinburgh University Press.

• Hodson, F.R., Kendall, D. G., Tautu, P. (eds). 1971. Mathematics in the Archaeological and Historical Sciences. Proceedings of the Anglo-Romanian Conference, Mamaia, 1970. Aldine-Atherton, Inc., Chicago.