Kayeleigh Sharp

Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

ESRI International User’s Conference 2012
Questions and Concerns

1. Are there relationships between

material culture and social identity
that can be gleaned from
archaeological data?

2. If so, how can these relationships be

empirically accessed and analyzed?

3. How can archaeologists more

effectively integrate advancements
made in the Geographic Information
Sciences to achieve higher-
resolution results?

More effective integration of ArcGIS and

the potential geodatabases offer to
expand our understanding of the past.

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The Gallinazo/Mochica Problem

Image by Kayeleigh Sharp

Archetypical Castillo-
Decorated :
Gallinazo Variant or
Image by Ytaka Yoshii
Archetypical Pan-North Coast
Gallinazo Phenomenon?
Negative-Paint
Fineware
Image courtesy of Izumi Shimada
Archetypical Mochica
Portrait Vessel
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Traditional Features, Traditional Questions, No Problem

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Typological Concerns

By Color

By Decoration

By Form

By Function

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Need to move beyond artifact-centered approaches

1. The typological (or classical set theory)

approach imposes an arbitrarily drawn,
rigid, static distinction on styles and
manufacturing techniques

2. Style and technology in reality are more

nuanced and dynamic.

3. Does not facilitate a flexible understanding

of human behavior in the past.
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Reconceptualizing the Data

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The Fuzzy Alternative

*Example adapted from MATLAB model (MathWorks 2012)

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Fuzzy Logic Applicability in Archaeological Research

Nested families of crisp sets that characterize fuzzy sets adapted from Demicco and Klir 2004:Fig. 2.3

• Not a new idea

• Gaining acceptance
• Integrated into ArcGIS
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Data Superclasses in the Gallinazo-Mochica structure

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Technological Choices as Composite Feature Classes

Analytical Objective: Evaluate artifacts in social contexts to

identify patterns that may be culturally or group specific and
analyzed scientifically:

1. Each class of technological choices consists of

artifacts manufactured in a particular ways.
2. Each artifact is a composite item comprised of
multiple technological attributes. that may be
selected for in a given situation to achieve a desired
goal.
3. Technological choices are illustrated as decisions, but
expressed as fuzzy points in the map below.
4. Because each technological choice can exist as a layer,
it can be combined with other layers as a composite
overlay to extract important information to reach the
desired analytical objective(s).

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Defining Technological Choice Parameters

Fuzzy Sets with Fuzzy Intervals

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Significance of the Ontology

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Mapping New Fuzzy Datasets Alongside Crisp Sets

Start

+ + =

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Concluding Remarks
Are there relationships between material culture and social identity that can be gleaned from
archaeological data?
By implementing the neural-fuzzy algorithm, it is possible to evaluate
relationships between material culture and other social phenomena such as
technological choices and practices using fuzzy logic reasoning to set variable
archaeological data parameters.

If so, how can these relationships be empirically accessed and analyzed?

Flexible to combine features and attributes to test multiple levels of
hypotheses by analyzing multiple properties and attributes as overlays.

How can archaeologists more effectively integrate advancements made in the Geographic
Information Sciences to achieve higher-resolution results?
Subdivides socially-significant concepts into empirically testable data/feature
classes built into the geodatabase structure.
Full integration with high-powered analytical capacities of ArcGIS.

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