Syllabus: Cities and Countryside in the Ancient World (digital humanities version)

Posted on 25 Jun 201226 Jun 2012 by Shawn

Below is a draft of my syllabus for my upcoming class on ‘Cities and Countryside in the Ancient World’ class. I’m very Mediterranean-centric; 12 weeks won’t allow for much else, and stick with what you know, right? Comments, suggestions are welcome.

—–

HIST3902-A Cities and Countryside in the Ancient World

Cities are creatures of the countryside. Understanding that relationship is key to understanding the ancient world. Discuss.

This course looks at the relationship between cities and countryside in the ancient world, as evidenced primarily through landscape archaeology. I will be arguing, amongst other things, that the form of that relationship is the key indicator for understanding the mindset, the nature of, that particular culture. It is no accident that ‘cities’ and ‘civilization’ are etymologically related: thus, looking at cities and countryside will give us an understanding of what being civilized meant in antiquity.

Objectives

Hacking as a Way of Knowing

Every exercise in this course builds on every other, as we build tools and work with data to construct an understanding of what it meant to be civilized in the (Greco-Roman) ancient world. The course objectives then are to:

Introduce and explore the study of ancient landscapes, society, and economy
Develop facility with representing archaeological and historical data using GIS and/or Network Analysis
Make a positive and public contribution to scholarly knowledge on some aspect of Greco-Roman antiquity as it played out across space.

Your Partners

You will be working with datasets that have been made available to you by scholars working in the field. I am enormously grateful to these partners. Some of this material is unpublished; all of it is rich. You have the opportunity to make real contributions to scholarly knowledge by mining and analyzing this data for new insights. Accordingly, you must maintain the highest standards of professionalism and academic ‘good citizenship’ as you work with this data.

Your Audience

I do not see the point of assigning you work that only I or the TA will read. In which case, we will be conducting certain portions of this course in public on the internet. (For more on my teaching philosophy, see http://bit.ly/LLq765).

Anything posted online may be posted under a pseudonym should you have privacy concerns. You need to discuss these with me during week 1. I strongly recommend you do use your own name, so that you can begin to build your online footprint as a serious scholar. I also suggest you begin to lurk on Twitter, to follow prominent archaeologists and historians there and on Academia.edu, so that you can connect to a world-wide community of practice.

The best student work will be posted and promoted on Electric Archaeology (electricarchaeology.ca) and on Twitter, with the ambition of having the Journal of Digital Humanities select it for formal publication. If your work is selected, you are under no obligation to have your work promoted in this fashion should you so choose.

Key Concepts

We will discuss and explore a number of key concepts. Terms that you should watch out for in your readings: primitivist, modernist, consumer city, producer city, bazaar, space syntax, actor-network theory, social network analysis, landscape formation processes, the anthropological nature of time/space, networks, information systems, agent-based simulation, computational economics.

Main Text

The following is on reserve in the library. Its philosophical and methodological approach will underpin much of what we will do.

Knappett, Carl. An Archaeology of Interaction: Network Perspectives on Material Culture and Society. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011.

Demonstrating Your Scholarly Growth

ORBIS and the social experience of space – due in class Wednesday Week 2 (September 19). 10%
GIS/Network Analysis – due in class Wednesday Week 9 (November 7). 30%
Final Project – due in class Monday December 03. 40%

These three assignments dovetail into one another. The first exercise involves working with ORBIS The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World http://orbis.stanford.edu/ to experience, via networks, maps, and simulation, something of the social experience of space around the Mediterranean. In the second exercise, you will create maps and/or social network graphs from real data provided by our partners (exact details TBA). In the Final Project, you will combine your understanding of the spatial realities of the ancient world with your maps and graphs in a final project which may combine media and text to answer the question with which we began the class.

Theory & Practise Exercises – due at end of Week 4 (October 5) and Week 6 (October 19). 20%.

These are a suite of exercises you may redo until you have achieved mastery. You may begin these exercises during Week 2, and submit at any point prior to the due date. The earlier you submit, the greater the chance that we can look at the work and help you. You have to allow at least 4 days for us to look the work over and return it to you. If you submit 4 days before the due date, you will not be allowed to redo the work. Please keep in mind that by offering you this chance, we are accepting a heavy grading load, and we ask for courtesy as we do so.

NB You will note that there is no final exam. DO NOT take that as a sign that this class is not as important as your other classes. By not having a final, I wish to signal to you that you must bring your best work to bear on your class work at all times.

Required (free) Software

You should download and install the following free software packages on your computer – or team up with someone else who can download and install them, should you not have access to a suitable machine. Note that ‘Portable GIS’ is meant to be run from a USB stick, and thus could be run on University computers.

Netlogo http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/

QGIS http://www.qgis.org/ OR Portable GIS http://www.archaeogeek.com/portable-gis.html

Gephi http://gephi.org/

Resources

Simulations

Some of the following simulations can be run in your browser (others you may only read about, as the code hasn’t been released). They (and their associated texts) should be explored. Why do they work the way they do? What are the assumptions behind them? How do they enhance or not your understanding?

Travellersim http://graeworks.net/abm/Travellersim.html

Roman Itineraries http://graeworks.net/abm/itineraries.html

Procedural Modeling of Cities http://ccl.northwestern.edu/cities/

Artificial Anasazi (a key archaeological implementation of agent based modeling) http://www.openabm.org/model/2222/version/1/view

Enkimdu http://www.dis.anl.gov/projects/enkimdu.html

Timelines & Mapping resources

Kartograph: http://kartograph.org/

Historyvis: http://historyvis.appspot.com/

Timemap: http://code.google.com/p/timemap/

Unfolding: http://unfoldingmaps.org/

Video

Introductory Lecture on Netlogo – Agents in Archaeology (video)

Blogs

GIS and Agent-Based Modeling http://gisagents.blogspot.ca/

Archaeological Networks http://archaeologicalnetworks.wordpress.com/

The Scottbot Irregular http://www.scottbot.net/HIAL/

Carleton Library

Maps, Data and Government Information Centre http://www.library.carleton.ca/contact/service-points/madgic

Digital Humanities Subject Guide http://www.library.carleton.ca/research/subject-guides/digital-humanities#welcome

Greek and Roman Studies Subject Guide http://www.library.carleton.ca/research/subject-guides/greek-and-roman-studies

Tentative Schedule

The following weekly schedule of topics is tentative and subject to change.

Part 1 (September):

Setting the scene: history & theory. Abandoning your 2-dimensional, top-down view of space: the emic vs. the etic.
Minoans, Mycenaeans and the Aegean
The Era of Colonization (Greeks, Etruscans, Phoenicians)

Part 2 (October):

Maps and GIS
Agent Based Simulation
Network Analysis
Landscape Archaeology & Survey

Part 3 (November):

Greek Cities
Greek Landscapes
Roman Cities
Roman Landscapes

The End (December 3)

Answering the questions with which we began.

Useful Bibliography

The following readings are indicative of the issues involved, and will deepen your understanding. This list is by no means exhaustive – consult the works’ bibliographies to pointers to further work! I provide them here to help you, to round out the ideas presented in our meetings. You will be able to make useful contributions to that discussion if you come prepared, having looked at some of these works. If you can’t find them on your own, you *must* ask the Historian/Classics Librarian for help to find other possible books/articles/online resources that can speak to the week’s topic. I expect you to read beyond the works listed here. Do you know how to use Google Scholar? Have you ever used L’Année philologique?

Agar, M. (2003). ‘My kingdom for a function: modelling misadventures of the innumerate’, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 6.3. http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/6/3/8.html

Bang, P., Mamoru Ikeguchi and Harmut G. Ziche, eds. (2006). Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies : Archaeology, Comparative History, Models and Institutions.

Brughmans, T. (2012). ‘Thinking through networks: a review of formal network methods in archaeology’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 19.2 Online version: DOI: 10.1007/s10816-012-9133-8 http://www.springerlink.com/index/10.1007/s10816-012-9133-8

Conolly, J., and M. Lake. (2006). Geographical Information Systems In Archaeology.

Coward, F. (2010). ‘Small worlds, material culture and Near Eastern social networks’, Proceedings of the British Academy 158, 449-479. http://www.fcoward.co.uk/Cowardsmallworlds.pdf

Frier, B. and D. Kehoe. (2007). ‘Law and economic institutions’, in W. Scheidel, I. Morris, R. Saller (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. 113-143.

Graham, S. (2006). ‘Networks, Agent-Based Modeling, and the Antonine Itineraries’, The Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19.1: 45-64.

Graham, S. (2009) ‘The Space Between: The Geography of Social Networks in the Tiber Valley’ in Coarelli, F. and Patterson, H. (eds) Mercator Placidissimus: the TiberValley in Antiquity. New research in the upper and middle river valley.

Graham, S. and J. Steiner. (2008). ‘Travellersim: Growing Settlement Structures and Territories with Agent-Based Modelling’, in J. Clark and E. Hagemeister (eds.), Digital Discovery: Exploring New Frontiers in Human Heritage. CAA 2006. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. Proceedings of the 34th Conference, Fargo, United States, April 2006. 57-67.

Ingold, T. (1993). ‘The Temporality of the Landscape’. World Archaeology 25.2 152–174.

Johnson, M. (1999) Archaeological Theory.

Lansing, J. S., and J. N. Kremer. (1993). ‘Emergent Properties of Balinese Water Temple Networks: Coadaptation on a Rugged Fitness Landscape’. American Anthropologist 95.1: 97–114.

Laurence, R. (2001). ‘The Creation of Geography: An Interpretation of Roman Britain’ in C. Adams and R. Laurence (eds.). Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire.

Massey, D. J. Allen, S. Pile (eds.) City Worlds: Understanding Cities 1.

Neville, M. (1996) Metropolis and Hinterland : the City of Rome and the Italian Economy, 200 B.C.-A.D. 200.

Orejas, Almudena, and F. Javier Sánchez-Palencia. (2002). ‘Mines, Territorial Organization, and Social Structure in Roman Iberia: Carthago Noua and the Peninsular Northwest’. American Journal of Archaeology 106.44: 581–599.

Pettegrew, D. K. (2007). ‘The Busy Countryside of Late Roman Corinth: Interpreting Ceramic Data Produced by Regional Archaeological Surveys’. Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 76.4: 743–784.

Schortman, E. and W. Ashmore. (2012). ‘History, networks, and the quest for power: ancient political competition in the Lower Motagua Valley, Guatemala’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18.1: 1-21.

Smith, M. (2005) ‘Networks, Territories, and the Cartography of Ancient States’. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95.4: 832–849.

Agent Based Modeling & Roman Resource Extraction: An Exploratory Lab

Posted on 3 Jun 201128 Jun 2011 by Shawn

These are the slides of the talk I gave at the Land and Natural Resources Conference last week at the Free University in Brussels. That talk was a bit more free form than the slides would suggest, so I’m not quite ready to share the written version (mostly because it’s still in a process of becoming…)

But, I think I’m fairly safe to share at least the opening bit….

Introduction
Could the extractive economy of Rome (such as mining, logging and forestry) promote structural growth? What would be the archaeological signs of structural growth?

So much in the ancient world appears to rely on connectivity and mobility, either literally in terms of things like road-building (Laurence, 1999) or more abstractly, in terms of social connections, bonds of friendship, amicitia, and patronage. Horden and Purcell (2000) make the argument for multiple connectivities, both physical and social, that bound up the Mediterranean world. In my own work, I have argued for social connections becoming ‘real’ in the physical landscape, as a mechanism for the creation of notions of territory and landscape (Graham and Steiner 2008). Sometimes these social connections can be read from the archaeometry of material culture; other times from epigraphy; sometimes from history. In this paper, I want to explore how patronage intersects with natural resource extraction, and whether or not these intersections could promote structural growth. As Mokyer points out, “There is a qualitative difference between an economy in which GDP per capita grows at 1.5 percent and one in which it grows at 0.2 percent” (2005:286). Understanding which possible conditions could promote growth (and to what degree) therefore is a useful exercise.

I use an agent based modeling framework (ABM) for this exploration because I am interested not in simulating the past, but in understanding how different understandings about the past combine. ABM allows me to systematically test the ways these ideas combine and to generate a landscape of possibilities against which I may then lay archaeological or historical evidence.

Agent Based Modelling
Agent based modelling is an approach to simulation that focuses on the individual (indeed, it is sometimes known as individual based modeling). In an agent based model, the agents or individuals are autonomous computing objects – they are their own programme. They are allowed to interact within an environment (which frequently represents some real-world physical environment). Every agent has the same suite of variables (if it were a model of basketball, ever agent would have a ‘height’ variable, and an ‘ability’ variable), but each agent’s individual combination of variables is unique. Agents can be aware of each other and the state of the world (or their location within it), depending on the needs of the model. What is important to note, especially when we are interested in the past, is that we are not trying to simulate the past; rather, the model is a tool to simulate how we believe a particular phenomenon worked in the past (cf Gilbert and Troitzsch 2005:17 on the logic of simulation). When we simulate, we are interrogating our own understandings and beliefs. What is particularly valuable then is that we can build a model, and when the agents begin to interact along the patterns of behavior that we have specified (drawn from our understanding of how various processes worked), we have a way of exploring the non-linear, non-intuitive, emergent consequences of those beliefs. What’s more, in order to code a particular behavior, we have to be clear about how we think about that behavior. It forces us to make our assumptions explicit. A second investigator then can examine the code, critique these assumptions and biases (or indeed, errors) and modify the model towards a ‘better’ state. In this way, the model is both a laboratory and a crowdsourced argument about the past. In that spirit, I offer the code for this model at http://graeworks.net, and encourage the reader to download, adapt, critique and improve the argument. The model is built using the Netlogo modeling environment and language (Wilensky 1999). Simulations make their argument in computer processes, and like all forms of expression, they carry their own rhetoric which must be analysed (Bogost 2007).

Theoretical Considerations
Did Rome experience growth? If so, in what ways did that growth occur? What was ‘modern’ about the Roman economy? Why did not Rome make the leap that Europe did? If it is any consolation, historians of the Industrial Revolution are as puzzled by how it happened, as we are by why Rome’s didn’t. An important consideration though comes from Mokyr’s analysis of the intellectual foundations of the Industrial Revolution (2005). For Mokyer, it comes down to the idea not just that ‘useful’ knowledge available had increased, but that the social setting for this knowledge had expanded (2005: 287). For Mokyer, useful knowledge relates directly to the physical world, and how it works.

This is not a view that would’ve been foreign to the bien-pensants of antiquity. Columella, Varo, Pliny all set about to catalogue and categorize the world around them. The difference though is one of quality; an Enlightment description of a phenomenon attempted a degree of accuracy and thoroughness that was alien to the Roman mind.

For Mokyer, the easier it becomes for individuals to access that knowledge, the more likely technological change was to happen, thus resulting in sustained economic growth (Mokyer 2005: 295-6). Though Mokyer doesn’t say it explicitly, he is talking about how information passes through social networks. As Mokyer points out, this useful knowledge did not have to percolate down to the many (301). It simply had to reach those in a position to act on it (a figure he reckons to be at most a few tens of thousands in all of Europe, 301). In Roman terms, to talk about social networks of influence is to talk about patronage.
Once we have created a model that encodes our understanding of the phenomena under question, it remains to interpret the results. A framework for understanding our model of resource extraction in the Roman world is provided by the Canadian economic historian and media theorist Harold Innis (Innis was the mentor of Marshall McLuhan).

[…]

Networks, Complexity, and Agent Based Modelling

Posted on 2 Jun 20102 Jun 2010 by Shawn

A presentation I gave to the Hispanic Baroque Project folks at UWO has been made available on their website. The links to each part are below.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7)

(there are few things more excruciating than watching yourself present. I always remember everything being far more pithier, wittier, louder, than what gets recorded. Ah perception…)

A New Project: Enrico Crema’s PhD work

Posted on 26 Mar 2010 by Shawn

Through the magic of the interweb, I learn this morning of the PhD work of Enrico Crema, who blogs about it at EvolvingSpaces. His work

seeks to study the evolution of prehistoric humter-gatherer settlement pattern in Jomon Japan, to do this I’m exploring a pretty wide range of fields and topics…To list, I’m interested in Spatial Analysis, Agent Based Modelling, Human Behavioral Ecology and Dual Inheritance Theory, and more in general everything about Evolution, Space and Human Behaviour (which basically anything you can think about…)

(Enrico, my TravellerSim might be useful for you; feel free to tear it apart and use whatever’s useful!)

I look forward to seeing what he comes up with! Already on his blog I learned about a plug-in for Netlogo that pushes data into the R stats package, which has *got* to be much more effective that those bloody spreadsheets I’ve been fighting with.

Anyway, one to watch!

Electric Archaeology: 3 years in the Blogoverse

Posted on 20 Jan 201020 Jan 2010 by Shawn

I just realized. I’ve been intermittently blogging now for three years, as of this December past. In that time, I think I’ve remained more or less true to the ‘mission’ of Electric Archaeology – to try out new techs, recount experiments, disseminate my research, in new media for archaeology and history. There have been times when I could post thoughtful, in-depth pieces; and times when I’ve merely passed on the interesting things that have turned up in my inbox. As of this morning according to WordPress, Electric Archaeology has had over 85,000 views, spread across 394 posts. There have been 329 comments made. I have 62 categories – clearly I need some rationalization there.

I sometimes toy with the idea of moving Electric Archaeology to my own space, so I can put some better analytics on it, but for whatever reason, that just doesn’t happen… :)

The all time most viewed posts on Electric Archaeology (the most recent posts of course are at the bottom, having had less chance to be viewed):

Title	Views
Home page	18,250
Civilization IV World Builder Manual	8,786
Game Mods	3,113
Moodle + WordPress = Online University	2,611
About Shawn Graham	1,609
Historical GIS and various Google Earth	1,495
History Channel – Roman Battle Game	1,458
Review: The First Jesus? Expedition Week	1,278
Language Switcher for WordPress	1,100
Publications & Conferences	1,081
Agent Models	979
Angel versus Moodle	975
Sketchup into Second Life	842
Review: EXPEDITION WEEK: ‘Search for the	823
Rubric for assessing historical scenario	689
Review: Unlocking the Great Pyramid, Nat	669
SketchLife – Sketchup plugin for exporti	650
When on Google Earth?	524
AutoCad into Unreal2	520
The most amazing game I’ve seen lately:	483
Multiverse & Sketchup : Doom of Seco	479
Review: Shipwreck! Captain Kidd, Nationa	470
Resistance is Futile: Facebook & Stu	463
Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great C	447
Review: Expedition Great White, Monday N	445
History Channel and Great Battles of Rom	432
Software Turns that Cheap Camera into a	428
Skype Can’t Hear Me Anymore	427
Ancient Civilizations Games- Competition	425
Greek and Roman Games in the Computer Ag	403
Cities & Centralities: A network app	396
Stone Age Online Game: Greenland	394
The Space Between: The Geography of Soci	389
The Glooper, Agent Based Modeling, and t	388
Path of the Elders: Game for teaching ab	386
Re-writing History: Battle of the Plains	380
Google Maps & Cultural Heritage	355
Archaeological Clutter & Dumpster Di	353
Archaeorama and the Amduat	352
Review: Lost Cities of the Amazon Nation	350
Omeka: a swahili word meaning ‘to displa	344
Review: Egypt Unwrapped: Alexander the G	330
Caesar IV and the Empire Online	324
Rome Reborn in Google Earth	318
FYI – Caesar IV tutorial	306
Review: Waking the Baby Mammoth	305
Simulations	304
Lulu.com and bypassing the publishers	302
PMOGing Internet Research Skills…	292
Digital Digging, a new version of Google	289
Going on an Expedition (National Geograp	280
Interactive Fiction (Text Adventure!) in	279
10th VAST International Symposium on Vir	279
YoYo Games Ancient Civilisations Game Ma	260
Archaeology in Second Life…. Where to	259
Planning archaeology in Second Life (2)	258
Open source virtual world: Croquet	243
CAA 2006 conference proceedings publishe	235
Sketchup + Augmented Reality	225
Historical Maps, GIS, and Second Life	222
Establishing Virtual Learning Worlds (fo	220
GIS & ABM in Netlogo	219
Forum Novum: a market in the Sabine Hill	219
Scenarios for Civilization IV	216
‘The Past Present: Augmented Historical	214
Magic (cyber)Carpet Ride	213
Life is a role-playing game: Weight Watc	212
Why computer games matter for history ed	206
So you’re interested in Alternate Realit	204
Masters and Doctoral Theses on Serious G	202
Roma Archaeology: Archaeological simulat	200
Forum Novum Scenario available	200
OnRez Viewer from Electric Sheep – Secon	199
Review: Herod’s Lost Tomb, National Geog	198
The Ancient Mediterranean Mod – Civiliza	195
Top 100 Learning Games, according to Ups	195
Serious Alternate Reality Game: Traces o	194
ANGEL LMS @ U Manitoba	191
Rome Total War: Battle of Cannae	190
Archaeology in, and archaeology of, Seco	186
Reading & Experiencing Space	185
Catalogue of Stamped Bricks from the Sou	185
Open Courseware	182
Civilization & Education	180
Learning from Las Vegas – Archaeology in	178
Northwest Rebellion – early stages work	177
Catal Hoyuk in Second Life	176
Sugata Mitra, Hole in the Wall, Self Org	172
Civ scenarios for teaching and learning	170
Archaeology, Data Mining, & Eureqa	162
Hampson Museum: Digital Curation, Digita	160
Learning to Write History with Video Gam	159
On Snow Crash, Sumer, and a Virtual Rape	159
Civ IV, some high school students, and s	155
Public Archaeology in Second Life – Remi	155
TravellerSim: Growing Settlement Structu	155
Tim Kohler on Agent Based Models in Arch	154
Visualising Word Links in Latin Inscript	152
Catalogue, XRF & XRD SES Brick Stamp	150
Excavating in Second Life (3)	149
Labour kills Educational Innovation	149
Library Research Skills Game from Carneg	145
JOLT: Best Practices for Integrating Gam	144
Dis Manibus RWU	142
Thinking Worlds: Rapid World Authoring	142
Interacting with Immersive Worlds II – C	142
Doing History or, ‘Where is Vinland?’	141
Game based learning and Latin Literacy	140
Vespasian Rocks. For 2000 Years.	140
International Digital Storytelling Confe	138
PMOG is now the Nethernet	138
Yahoo Pipes and the Pleiades Project	137
Horizon 2009 Report	133
Call for Papers: Chicago Digital Humanit	130
Federation of American Scientists, Games	129
The Role of the Governor General: Canadi	129
Using Natural Language Processing and So	128
Text-based virtual worlds: an archaeolog	125
Using Civilization IV in a University Cl	124
Omeka plugins: Contribute, Geolocation	123
The Grail Diary	122
TweetMapping Archaeology	122
Archaeology: Let’s Build Something New	121
Writing Archaeology and Writing Fiction	119
Map of Complexity Science	117
Serious Games Canada Summit, Montreal	112
PMOG Mission: “Awww Sir, how can I find	111
“Speculum Fantasia” and thoughts on othe	109
The Ancient History Encyclopedia	108
History Canada Game: Mod for Civ III	108
Review: The Mystery of the Screaming Man	108
Archaeometry Cluster Analysis, BSR Brick	106
Agent Modeling and the settlement of the	105
Excavating Second Life	104
ABM: The emergence of cities	104
“In the springtime of 51 BC, Ptolemy Aul	104
Omeka Live!	104
Conference: Trade, Commerce, and the Sta	103
Oblivion, London, and Archaeological VR:	102
Do games actually achieve curricular lea	102
Classics and MMORPGS: not classic mmorpg	100
Digital History Class at Indiana Univers	100
Myths about Serious Games & Improvin	100
Virtual Excavation Update 5	99
Immersive Worlds conference at Brock	98
Learning 2.0 – interview with Garrison	98
Shaking up the Textbook Market	96
Conference Announcement: Communities and	96
Learning with Digital Games – Nicola Whi	95
Teddy: 3d art from 3d drawing	92
SL_Archaeology (or, the virtual excavati	91
Interactive Fiction – bibliography and o	90
The Year of the Four Emperors mod for Ci	90
Tweeting Archaeology	88
Mashing the physical and the virtual: ‘t	88
MAGIS: Mediterranean Archaeology GIS	88
Visualisation in Archaeology	87
Dig Into History – game from the Orienta	85
Omeka Plugins	84
Archaeology in Second Life – WAC6	83
Teaching with Interactive Fiction	83
“Making Dead History Come Alive Through	82
Interacting with Immersive Worlds Confer	81
Pyla-Koutsopetria: archaeological site i	79
Google Earth, Politics, and Replacement	79
Niagara 1812 – Interactive Arts & Sc	79
VisitorSim: agent modeling for site mana	78
evolution of a wikipedia article	78
Journal of Virtual Worlds Research: Educ	76
XRD results of British School at Rome st	75
(some) Top Ten Tips for Online Instructo	74
What does Civilization Stand For? Moddin	74
Omeka & Archaeological Survey Projec	73
Virtual Excavation in Second Life Has Fo	72
Native Language and Culture through 3d G	71
Powerpointed Out? Try Flypaper Instead.	71
Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean	71
Immersive Learning Bibliograph 1	71
On Learning in Video Games	70
Flat World Knowledge	70
True Life Archaeological Adventures (…	70
CALL FOR PAPERS for ALT-J – Learning and	69
Interactive Fiction, Passively	69
Wordle my world	69
OpenSim	68
Web 2.0 is not a democracy (and some dis	67
Advocating for Public Archaeology: don’t	67
The Ecology of Games	66
Alpheios – Firefox tools for Ancient Lan	65
Teaching with Civilization IV in Distanc	65
Secrets & Design – Lessons for Publi	64
Platial and Pleiades – rss feeds	61
Essays on History and New Media	61
Report on the Greek and Roman Games in t	61
Solipsis – another online world	61
Google WonderWheel and Me	61
Archaeology: Reverse Engineering World D	60
Discussion	60
Before there were graphics, there was te	60
Writers wanted for site – what would you	58
Gaming archaeology	58
Omeka Live… again!	57
E-learning in Canada: Report	57
The spatial analysis of past built envir	57
Some Academic Online Worlds	57
The NetherNet No More	57
Canadian Historical Review – article on	57
Distance Learning with the NPS Archaeolo	56
The PDQ – a new journal bridging bloggin	56
Touchgraph: digging through digital data	56
Indici ai bolli laterizi: digitised some	55
Neogeography, Gaming and Second Life	54
Archaeology, Art, and Abandoned Urban Pl	53
PatronWorld – Digital Death for Artifici	53
When on Google Earth: Now on Facebook	53
A Tribute to the Rolling Boulder	52
Archaeology & Computing – some recor	51
When the Brain Drain gets Clogged	51
SLOODLE v 0.4 available: educational too	50
A Text Book in Agent Based Modelling	50
Reconstructing Hadrian’s Wall in Second	49
Piccolo for dynamic Harris Matrices (amo	49
	48
Ramo Games	48
Don’t Knock the Aztecs: Civ for History,	48
TinyMap vs. Platial	46
Responding to “Is PDQ a good idea?”	46
“Everything They Ever Wanted”: A NetLogo	46
Pyla-Koutsopetria: archaeological site i	46
EJA Review Piece, ‘Second Lives: Online	46
The archaeology of digital landscapes	45
Digital Media and Learning Competition:	45
“Burial Passage” – Remixing Catalhoyuk	45
Dual Reality: blended learning at Covent	45
On Caesar IV and the Ancient Economy	44
BiblioCartography	44
Some Agent Reading	44
Life on Site: PKAP and Podcasts	43
The Audio-Guide 2.0: location-triggered	43
Let’s write a textbook	43
Nabonidus & RWU Virtual Excavation	43
RPA Field School Scholarship	43
Digital Research Tools Wiki	43
Interactive Fiction Competition	42
Digital Zaraka	42
Archaeology Island in Second Life	42
Collective Dynamics Group	42
Of Chapels, Clutter, and Archaeological	42
The Virtual Via Flaminia	42
Archaeological Projects funded by the Ar	41
Civilization Revolution	41
Conference Call for Papers: NORTH AMERIC	41
Civilized Education	41
Canadians on the Nile	40
Electric Archaeology: Research Notes – w	40
Archaeoinformatics and Digging Digitally	40
University of Leicester – Designing in S	39
Open Context	39
Giving a presentation in Second Life	38
Towards a Theory of Good-History-through	38
Dryad and Simplifying World Design	38
Damnatio Memoriae, a work of Interactive	38
Archaeological Apps for Iphones and Andr	38
Interactive Fiction experiment continues	38
Ryerson & Facebook	37
Heritage Preservation in the National Po	37
Flash Earth	37
Archaeology and the Visual – a conversat	37
Machine translation	37
The Article of the Future	37
Vespasian, Civ IV, and Intro to Roman Cu	37
Nethernet Puzzle Contest: I am the Champ	35
Simulating History Research Lab	35
WAC-6: Art, Archaeology and Technology:	34
Electric Archaeology ‘Blook’	34
Agent Based Models in the Humanities: a	34
Some More Agent Based Modelling Readings	34
User Experience of Reality & Gaming	34
The Plan	33
On Comics	33
Seminars on GIS & Archaeology	32
Google Wave & Archaeology	32
PD(Q) – first edition	32
Ancient World Mapping Center	32
MadLat Conference, Winnipeg	32
Quibus Lusoribus Bono? A Classicist Shak	32
Deadline Approaches: LEAP II, Internet A	32
Interviews with Digital Historians &	32
Some games with historical value… of s	31
The Virtual Research Environment for Arc	31
Online learning in SL & RWU	31
Space as a change agent	30
Dodging Bullets in Presentations	30
When on Google Earth: now in its 21st it	30
Affordable 3D printer: archaeological us	30
Winnipeg: MADLaT conference	30
Digitally Distributed Urban Environments	30
Persuasive Games	29
The Sky Remains	29
PMOG mission	29
Computers from Prehistory to Today	29
Online education and the economics of th	29
Wikitude World Browser	28
Archaeology Channel International Film a	28
VastPark Stress Test	28
Call for Papers: Complex Networks	28
Creating Serious Games	28
Bug Labs and hardware mashups	27
Interactive Fiction – the Text Adventure	27
Social Networks and Ceramics	27
The best edu-blogs	26
Remembrance Day	26
70 000 views	26
Free Archaeology & Nabonidus	26
Special issue of Innovate Online	26
Theorizing Digital Archaeology	25
Most viewed Electric Archaeology posts	25
Get Interacting With Immersive Worlds	25
Archaeology Magazine & Blogging Arch	25
SLED Events – Places to go to see educat	24
Educational Uses in Second Life	24
natgeogame1	24
The State of the Humanities	23
Josh Epstein on Agent Based Modeling	23
Why Grand Theft Auto Should be Taught in	23
“the employment of leisure”	23
“Great game, but NOT a study guide”	23
PMOGing (2)	23
2006 ‘Networks, Agent-Based Modeling, an	23
Interface, NETSCI09, and MHR	23
box, Slideshare, and Angel	22
Abolish the University. And while we’re	22
So those system requirements really are	22
9000 views	22
A Polis of Pixels: Social Networking for	22
natgeogame	22
Ah the Rural Canadian Internet…	21
Dynamic Modeling in a GIS Environment Au	21
NetherNet Redux? Google Sidewiki	21
From the vault – reflections of a first	21
Just Leap In: Light Embeddable MUVE?	21
wordpress 2.5 ate my homework	20
The Trouble with Civilization	20
Pleiades Responds	20
Another Day, another Online World servic	20
….and now, the Multiverse!	20
Complaints Department	19
Second Assisi & Secunda Vita	19
File this under ‘tooting of own horn’	19
R.F.Newbold, “Some social and economic c	19
Blogging Archaeology	19
Video of 3d printer in Action	19
Slideshare and Slidecasting (and the Tra	18
WAC Student Committee Recruiting New Mem	18
10 000 BV	18
Wikis in plain english	17
XRF results of British School at Rome st	17
Caesar IV	17
The London Charter	17
RWU: first in the world!	17
Publishing Archaeology	17
Educational Tour Guide	16
Visualizing Latin & Other Things	16
The Past Discussed (Quarterly)	15
To market, to market we go!	15
TypeRacer	15
P2PU – the social wrapper on open course	15
XRF results of British School at Rome st	15
Some games bibliography for you	14
Bridging weblogs and the unwebbed	14
Tenure for Digital Work	13
Immersive Worlds Conference	13
Escapist Magazine and Serious Games	13
PD(Q) Still a Good Idea	12
Bristol Light Cider, from Coronation Hal	12
Our Surest Hopes of Prosperity – Gordon	12
Case Studies Wanted – The Subject Centre	12
Next Generation Storytelling	12
Roma Victor	11
Educause Immersive Learning Environments	11
On this Remembrance Day: Cecil Elliott	11
birthing pmog	11
Twisty Little Passages	11
Upcoming Presentations	11
Useful education-in-SL stuff	11
Egyptian Temples in SL	10
Look on thes works, ye mighty	10
GeoAnnotated Electric Archaeologist	10
Digital Media and Learning Competition	10
Centres for Digital Humanities & Oth	9
Goodbye, IFA	8
Digital Humanities Summer Institute at U	8
Kickstarter: funding your project	8
The Coming Web	8
Who I am, what this blog’ll be about…	8
All Rules Lead to Players	8
Material Culture…. in a virtual world?	6
On a slightly different note – of museum	6
Immersion	5
Working online	5
Mapping Witches	5
Postcard from Second Life	3
Who’s On Second – podcasts about nonprof	3
Agent based modelling of the Hispanic Ba	3

“Everything They Ever Wanted”: A NetLogo Case Study of a Model of Rebellion in the Tobacco Dark Patch ofTennessee and Kentucky

Posted on 29 Oct 200929 Oct 2009 by Shawn

Agent based modelling appears to be gaining traction as a methodology in historical investigation. Good!

Just seen:

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/8/2/3/2/p82320_index.html

“Everything They Ever Wanted”: ANetLogo Case Study of a Model of Rebellion in the Tobacco Dark Patch ofTennessee and Kentucky

Abstract

The Night Rider Tobacco War during the period 1904-1909
in Kentucky and Tennessee provides a model case study of rebellion/revolution/ social banditry. The use of platoon- and company-size unit operations, guerilla warfare, boycotts and sabotage by the Dark TobaccoGrowers Association against the Duke Tobacco Trust followed the trajectory of a revolution, from inception through success in overturning the power relations in the traditional small tobacco farm country. Success in gaining the aims of the movement was followed by a
melting away of the footsoldiers despite strenuous attempts by the leadership of the Association to continue activities after victory in the original aims of the group—destruction of the economic and political stranglehold the Duke interests had achieved. As the factual background of the events in the Dark Patch are known and—in most instances—well documented, it is possible to use NetLogo programming to test the validity of causational theories of revolution. NetLogo is a computer modeling environment in which agents are programmed to carry out specific, simple rules of behavior and allowed to interact—a “virtual laboratory” in which the behavioral rules can be altered to test different hypotheses and the result permitted to emerge based solely upon the operation of those rules. For each posited causative factor (Goldstone’s triad of inflation, heightened elite competition and strain on governmental finances, for example) the original position
and dominant motivation(s) can be set up and the situation allowed to play itself out to see how closely the predictions of the theory mirror the historic record. The further a theory’s predictions deviate from reality, the greater the doubt cast upon its validity.

PatronWorld – Digital Death for Artificial Romans

Posted on 29 Jan 2009 by Shawn

One long term project is finally nearing publication – my artificial society of Romans who pay respects one to another (the morning ‘salutatio’: the process of visibily re-affirming patronage links). In the model, a theory of civil violence in the Roman world is articulated, as an outcome of patronage or its failure (I use to have a ‘smite!’ button and could kill the digital Romans at will, but that was obviously unsatisfactory).

The model lives here. Below the model on that page are excerpts from the paper describing what the model does, and an ever so brief rationale for why it does these things – you’ll have to wait for the formal publication for why any of this matters!

It’s currently under review, so I made the model public in order for the reviewer to be able to delve into the code if he or she so desires. Simulations are arguments-in-code, as Ian Bogost tells us, so the rhetoric of my code needs to be evaluated as much as the rhetoric of my article.

GIS & ABM in Netlogo

Posted on 2 Jun 2008 by Shawn

Came across a post today on the ‘GIS and Agent-Based Modelling‘ blog (from the good people at CASA at UCL in the UK) that should encourage more archaeologists to get into agent modelling. Archaeologists are very familiar with GIS, and to a much lesser degree, agent based modelling. Getting the two to work together – importing GIS data into an agent-modelling environment – has usually been difficult. Apparently, there is now a plugin for Netlogo to import esri shapefiles into the Netlogo environment:

“Whilst browsing the OpenABM website I came across a post by Eric Russell about a beta version GIS Extension for NetLogo and could not resist trying it out. The extension provides primitives for importing vector GIS data (in the form of ESRI shapefiles) and raster GIS data (in the form of ESRI ascii grid files) into NetLogo.

The extension and instillation instructions can be downloaded from:
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/4.0/extensions/gis/

There are two example models, one which loads a raster file of surface elevation for a small area near Cincinnati, Ohio (above). To quote from the documentation “It uses a combination of the gis:convolve primitive and simple NetLogo code to compute the slope (vertical angle) and aspect (horizontal angle) of the earth surface using the surface elevation data. Then it simulates raindrops flowing downhill over that surface by having turtles constantly reorient themselves in the direction of the aspect while moving forward at a constant rate”.

This should make it easier for archaeologists with an interest in how humans interact with the landscape to get their GIS (for managing landscape data) & ABM’s (for modelling how we think humans work) to work together! I’m going to, when I have a moment, install this plugin and see what it can do.

Ancient World Mapping Center

Posted on 8 Feb 2007 by Shawn

I was pleased to discover that the Ancient World Mapping Center has picked up my paper from the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19.1 (2006) 25-64. The abstract from that paper is here, and some of my agent based models can be found over at my postdoc pages at the University of Manitoba.

Caesar IV

Posted on 27 Dec 2006 by Shawn

….ah christmas morn. Opening the new toys… and a copy of Caesar IV! Can’t wait to get into it… it has a ‘sandbox’ mode, allowing you to disregard all the preset scenarios and to build your own. I’m going to build me an Ostia, and a Pompeii, and see what emerges out of the simulation. I’ve done some city simulations with Netlogo (see the agent based modeling page) where I’ve built the interactions from scratch. William Urrichio argues that games embody different epistemologies, so I’ll be interested to see how the game designers envision ancient life… and to compare against my own simulations. Theirs of course is much more aesthetically pleasing than my wee netlogo creations, but all of them have value…

Electric Archaeology

it's not just digital, it's electric!

Category: netlogo