Encoding and simulating the past. A machine learning approach to the archaeological information

The encoding of the spatial-temporal archeological, historical and anthropological records can be considered an ideal-typical representation of the human reasoning and thus also an artificial membrane interposed between the researcher and the past. These membranes are here considered artificial networks and can undergo interrogation processes through the most advanced analytical tools for learning and modeling complex configurations. The aim of this paper is to synthesize recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science and – at the same time – to support the connectionists and symbolic computational paradigms as a new epistemic frontier in the automatic annotation of tangible and intangible heritage as well in the contemporary theories and methods of the archeological thought.