Archaeology Based Modelling: A few NetLogo models for archaeology classes.
Archaeology-Based Models are made for students and people interested in archaeology. It proposes to study basic field methods and phenomena to illustrate how they impact on an excavation process.
This model analyse how the balance between nature and culture affects the landscape, using rock art sites as a proxy. The user can choose between a world where the decision to make a new painting is defined by general environmental characteristics, and a world where it is defined by purely cultural criteria - individual to each turtle. Does it change the way rock art sites are created in the landscape? How does that correlates with the archaeological context that can be studied in specific regions? How does a cumulative effect affects the results?
This model's successive versions have been presented at the 2016 Brazilian Rock Art Association and at the 2017 Computer Application in Archaeology.
In this model, the archaeologist can design a field methodology, and compare how would random and systematic sampling have worked out. The model uses point-and-click to produce actions.
New things from version 0.5:
- The point-and-click step are simplified. Just hit the Go excavate! button and click wherever you want. It allows to click-and-drag to create trenches and shapes.
- Added the amount or proportion of sites/concentrations found by the archaeologist and through other methods.
- Revealing the map now shows all three methods in different colors.
This new model simulates the work of public officers to prevent the natural degradation of archaeological sites. The user defines initial conditions and see how the heritage is kept - or not. Some variables can be updated as the simulation goes. Users also can send archaeologists to dig out new sites and watch how the officers struggle to manage. Give them a little budget allowance.