Pau de Soto | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (original) (raw)
Books by Pau de Soto
The basic concept which this work has been articulated with is that the analysis of the Roman eco... more The basic concept which this work has been articulated with is that the analysis of the Roman economy was also reconstructed from the distribution and the mobility of goods. Several methodological approaches are used to these days that also suggest how Roman transport works. The analysis of data provided by the archaeological material is certainly one of the most important as the recording is just the result of the movement of such goods. The study of ancient sources describe in its passages such issues as transportation, the purchasing or selling of products or aspects of Roman law, which also represent a source of valuable information. Meanwhile, this work provides a view of the use of infrastructure and the simulation of the movement as indispensable to know the benefits and shortcomings of the transport system created in Roman times. A thorough analysis of each distribution models set (both temporary and cheap) provides valuable information for understanding the mechanisms of the Roman economy and society, but also presents a series of shortcomings that make its interpretation a incomplete result. It is therefore obvious that the combination of all of them should allow a more global perspective of the Roman economy, especially in matters of the movement of goods.
The knowledge of infrastructure is essential to obtain a more accurate knowledge of the freight transportation. Therefore the first part of this work has been presented to study the communications network of the Catalan territory. The lack of previous studies which globally, thoroughly and systematically treated the whole set of communications on this Roman territory, forced to devote a significant part of this project precisely to the gathering, documentation, analysis and digitization of Romanian communications. This project has taken into account while analyzing the whole infrastructure of Roman roads which existed in Roman times, whether through land environment, river or sea.
Hence, the knowledge of infrastructure and working of transport has been used as a basis for interpreting the economic particularities of the north east region of Tarragona in Roman times. The results of this thesis has been, therefore, developing a model of the commercial movement which can help to a better understanding of the economic and political peculiarities of this region and to provide with new answers to the questions about mobility in Roman times as it might be the distribution of archaeological material in Catalonia.
The simulation results have allowed to obtain, with quantified data, assessment of costs and time needed to transport goods from different parts of the Catalan territory. Quantification of transport costs is an indispensable tool to justify if the archaeological record follows, for example, patterns of market strategies or on the contrary it is being influenced by other elements such as a state grant to finance all or part of the transportation costs. In fact, it can be understood that this work has attempted to first evaluate numerically the particularities of the Roman communications in Catalonia. Moving away from more or less intuitive perceptions or assumptions, the results of this study provide an estimated quantification of transport costs in terms of a market system. As it has been seen throughout the whole work, coincidences or differences between the model and the archaeological documentation allow to indicate peculiarities of the system.
El tema de la movilidad resulta por numerosas razones, un tema de acuciante actualidad en nuestro... more El tema de la movilidad resulta por numerosas razones, un tema de acuciante actualidad en nuestro país. Tanto el desarrollo de nuevas líneas de Alta Velocidad ferroviaria como la construcción de autovías y nuevas terminales de aeropuertos han vuelto a modificar de forma ostensible la capacidad de movimiento de la población española. Pero, ¿son estos cambios realmente adecuados para las necesidades económicas y sociales de nuestra población?, ¿realmente se han modificado tanto los flujos de movimiento con las nuevas infraestructuras?, o más bien mantenemos una inercia en la forma que se han desarrollado tales infraestructuras, sin cuestionarnos las ventajas ni inconvenientes de determinados proyectos.
Papers by Pau de Soto
Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage
Simulating Roman Economies
Rome was the first empire that through its expansion not only conquered the maritime perimeter of... more Rome was the first empire that through its expansion not only conquered the maritime perimeter of the Mediterranean but also occupied inland territories far away from the Mediterranean shore. But it was a burdensome task since Rome needed to build an extraordinary communications network that combined sea, river, and land routes in order to achieve this purpose. This chapter tries to analyse the evolution of Roman transport infrastructure in the Iberian Peninsula to detect how different political changes affected the economy and society of this territory as well as the construction and modification of communication routes. This chapter combines archaeological data, demography, and applications of network science analysis of transport networks on the Iberian Peninsula to offer an unprecedented overview of the impact of transport routes on the configuration of the territory. The connectivity of the transport network, which shows the best and worst connected urban settlements, can be re...
Vi Encuentro De Arqueologia Del Suroeste Peninsular 2013 Isbn 978 84 616 6306 4 Pags 1551 1576, 2013
La red de transportes en el Imperio Romano, que englobaba las rutas marítimas, fluviales y terres... more La red de transportes en el Imperio Romano, que englobaba las rutas marítimas, fluviales y terrestres, sirvió para ordenar y organizar los distintos territorios que iban siendo anexionados. Gracias a esta gran red de transportes se pudo mantener la cohesión de una gran extensión territorial, permitiendo la circulación de noticias, personas y mercancías. El análisis de su configuración y funcionamiento nos permiten obtener un nuevo punto de vista acerca de la organización territorial y los transportes, en este caso del Suroeste peninsular en época romana.
RESUMEN: Este trabajo tiene un doble propósito. Por una parte, se presentan métodos de prospecció... more RESUMEN: Este trabajo tiene un doble propósito. Por una parte, se presentan métodos de prospección superficial, geofísica y sondeos que han estado asistidos con tecnologías geoespaciales aplicadas a la Arqueología. Este tipo de intervención destaca por su escasa agresión al subsuelo y al entorno y el requerimiento de recursos temporales y económicos menores a los de otras intervenciones arqueológicas. El segundo objetivo es reflexionar sobre los usos antiguos del suelo, la diacronía y la forma de ocupación de un complejo asentamiento que se data entre los siglos III a. C. y VII d. C., más allá del concepto puntual de yacimiento. Este análisis histórico-arqueológico se puede realizar gracias al registro en detalle de la dispersión de vestigios materiales. Palabras clave: Periodos ibérico y romano. Patrón de asentamiento. SIG. Prospección arqueológica. Usos del suelo. Contestania.
Proceedings of the 1st TIR-FOR Symposium : from territory studies to digital cartography, 2021
Aquitaviae, projet de carte dynamique participative des voies de l'Aquitaine romaine Clement Cout... more Aquitaviae, projet de carte dynamique participative des voies de l'Aquitaine romaine Clement Coutelier, François Didierjean El estudio y diseminación de las vías romanas en la era posdigital: el proyecto Viator-e Pau de Soto sTudies of landscape, seTTlemenT and archaeological Topography in The developmenT of digiTal carTography TIR-FOR (Tabula Imperii Romani-Forma Orbis Romani) and the landscape archaeology in northern Dacia. The case of Potaissa Florin-Gheorghe Fodorean La realización de mapas de densidad para la investigación del poblamiento antiguo. El entorno del Bajo Guadalquivir (SO de España) entre los siglos ii y iv d.C. como caso de análisis
Recogito is an open source tool for the semi-automatic annotation of place references in maps and... more Recogito is an open source tool for the semi-automatic annotation of place references in maps and texts. It was developed as part of the Pelagios 3 research project, which aims to build up a comprehensive directory of places referred to in early maps and geographic writing predating the year 1492. Pelagios 3 focuses specifically on sources from the Classical Latin, Greek and Byzantine periods; on Mappae Mundi and narrative texts from the European Medieval period; on Late Medieval Portolans; and on maps and texts from the early Islamic and early Chinese traditions. Since the start of the project in September 2013, the team has harvested more than 120,000 toponyms, manually verifying almost 60,000 of them. Furthermore , the team held two public annotation workshops supported through the Open Humanities Awards 2014. In these workshops, a mixed audience of students and academics of different backgrounds used Recogito to add several thousand contributions on each workshop day. A number o...
Computational Social Sciences
Social Science History, 2021
Transport routes are basic elements that are inextricably linked to diverse political, economic, ... more Transport routes are basic elements that are inextricably linked to diverse political, economic, and social factors. Transport networks may be the cause or result of complex historical conjunctions that reflect to some extent a structural conception of the political systems that govern each territory. It is for this reason that analyzing the evolution of the transport routes layout in a wide territory allows us to recognize the role of the political organization and its economic influence in territorial design. In this article, the evolution of the transport network in the Iberian Peninsula has been studied in a broad chronological framework to observe how the different political systems of each period understood and modified the transport systems. Subsequently, a second analysis of the evolution of transport networks in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula is included in this article. This more detailed and geographically restricted study allows us to visualize in a different way...
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Abstract This paper attempts to analyse the land transport in Roman times in mountainous areas, t... more Abstract This paper attempts to analyse the land transport in Roman times in mountainous areas, taking into account the most feasible location for the road infrastructures as well as the conditions for different means of transport. With the use of different GIS applications such as LCP (Low Cost Paths) and Network analysis, the study aims to recognise the time, effort and cost that was involved in crossing important mountainous barriers such as the Pyrenees and the Alps. In spite of the lack of an economic return, the Roman Empire invested a lot of resources in building complex infrastructures up in mountainous regions. This paper addresses the reasons behind such an economic effort.
In this paper we describe the process of capture and analysis of low altitude aerial images of th... more In this paper we describe the process of capture and analysis of low altitude aerial images of the site of Contributa Iulia. Specific conditions when these images were taken has led to obtaining a significant amount of data (mainly crop-marks) on the shape and internal structure of the layout of the Roman city and its surroundings. We will explain our strategy to optimize the exploitation of these data in two main lines. First, we have produced several digital surface models and orthoimages that will allow mapping of the visible archaeological marks. Second, we have expanded the possibilities of identifying buried remains. We will show how these results are integrated in a GIS environment, providing selective criteria for the development of geophysical and surface survey. Finally we will raise some questions about the scientific potential of aerial images in our study area.
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM conference on Web science - WebSci '14, 2014
This paper discusses an emerging cloud of Linked Open Data in the humanities sometimes referred t... more This paper discusses an emerging cloud of Linked Open Data in the humanities sometimes referred to as the Graph of Ancient World Data (GAWD). It provides historical background to the domain, before gong on to describe the open and decentralised characteristics which have partially characterised its development. This is done principally through the lens of Pelagios, a collaborative initiative led by the authors which connects online historical resources based on common references to places. The benefits and limitations of the approach are evaluated, in particular its low barrier to entry, open architecture and restricted scope. The paper concludes with a number of suggestion for encouraging the adoption of Linked Open Data within other humanities communities and beyond.
Trabajo presentado a la Reunion Cientifica "Los paisajes agrarios de la romanizacion, arquit... more Trabajo presentado a la Reunion Cientifica "Los paisajes agrarios de la romanizacion, arquitectura y explotacion del territorio II" celebrada en el Alentejo (Portugal) del 24 al 25 de mayo de 2012.
In this paper we have two main objectives. The first is the presentation of fieldwork and geophys... more In this paper we have two main objectives. The first is the presentation of fieldwork and geophysics assisted with GPS, GIS and other Spatial Technologies applied to archaeological research. The advantage of this approach is the scarce aggression to soils and environment and the request of smaller economic and temporary resources than other archaeological fieldwork. The second objective is to reflect on ancient land uses, the diachronic sequence and structure of a complex Iberian Iron Age and Roman site of long duration (3rd cent. BC to 7th cent. AD). The accurate mapping of dispersion of the archaeological record allows this kind of historical analysis.
La movilidad es uno de los factores claves a la hora de entender el grado de complementariedad y ... more La movilidad es uno de los factores claves a la hora de entender el grado de complementariedad y cohesion de cualquier Estado. Las politicas de infraestructuras de transporte modelan junto con las con las condiciones geograficas esta movilidad. Este articulo trata de analizar la movilidad en la Peninsula Iberica a lo largo del tiempo, desde epoca romana al siglo XVIII a traves del uso de aplicaciones de redes de SIG (Sistemas de Informacion Geografica. Mobility is one of the key factors to understand the degree of complementarity and cohesion of any State. Policies of transport infrastructures model such mobility together with geographical conditions. This paper attempts to analyze mobility in the Iberian Peninsula over the time from Roman period to the XVIIIth century by employing network applications of GIS (Geographical Information Systems).
Resumen del trabajo presentado al VI Encuentro de Arqueologia del Suroeste Peninsular, celebrado ... more Resumen del trabajo presentado al VI Encuentro de Arqueologia del Suroeste Peninsular, celebrado en Villafranca de los Barros (Badajoz) del 4 al 6 de octubre de 2012.-- et al.
Trabajo presentado al Leipzig eHumanities Seminar celebrado el 12 de diciembre de 2012 en Leipzig... more Trabajo presentado al Leipzig eHumanities Seminar celebrado el 12 de diciembre de 2012 en Leipzig (Alemania).
The basic concept which this work has been articulated with is that the analysis of the Roman eco... more The basic concept which this work has been articulated with is that the analysis of the Roman economy was also reconstructed from the distribution and the mobility of goods. Several methodological approaches are used to these days that also suggest how Roman transport works. The analysis of data provided by the archaeological material is certainly one of the most important as the recording is just the result of the movement of such goods. The study of ancient sources describe in its passages such issues as transportation, the purchasing or selling of products or aspects of Roman law, which also represent a source of valuable information. Meanwhile, this work provides a view of the use of infrastructure and the simulation of the movement as indispensable to know the benefits and shortcomings of the transport system created in Roman times. A thorough analysis of each distribution models set (both temporary and cheap) provides valuable information for understanding the mechanisms of the Roman economy and society, but also presents a series of shortcomings that make its interpretation a incomplete result. It is therefore obvious that the combination of all of them should allow a more global perspective of the Roman economy, especially in matters of the movement of goods.
The knowledge of infrastructure is essential to obtain a more accurate knowledge of the freight transportation. Therefore the first part of this work has been presented to study the communications network of the Catalan territory. The lack of previous studies which globally, thoroughly and systematically treated the whole set of communications on this Roman territory, forced to devote a significant part of this project precisely to the gathering, documentation, analysis and digitization of Romanian communications. This project has taken into account while analyzing the whole infrastructure of Roman roads which existed in Roman times, whether through land environment, river or sea.
Hence, the knowledge of infrastructure and working of transport has been used as a basis for interpreting the economic particularities of the north east region of Tarragona in Roman times. The results of this thesis has been, therefore, developing a model of the commercial movement which can help to a better understanding of the economic and political peculiarities of this region and to provide with new answers to the questions about mobility in Roman times as it might be the distribution of archaeological material in Catalonia.
The simulation results have allowed to obtain, with quantified data, assessment of costs and time needed to transport goods from different parts of the Catalan territory. Quantification of transport costs is an indispensable tool to justify if the archaeological record follows, for example, patterns of market strategies or on the contrary it is being influenced by other elements such as a state grant to finance all or part of the transportation costs. In fact, it can be understood that this work has attempted to first evaluate numerically the particularities of the Roman communications in Catalonia. Moving away from more or less intuitive perceptions or assumptions, the results of this study provide an estimated quantification of transport costs in terms of a market system. As it has been seen throughout the whole work, coincidences or differences between the model and the archaeological documentation allow to indicate peculiarities of the system.
El tema de la movilidad resulta por numerosas razones, un tema de acuciante actualidad en nuestro... more El tema de la movilidad resulta por numerosas razones, un tema de acuciante actualidad en nuestro país. Tanto el desarrollo de nuevas líneas de Alta Velocidad ferroviaria como la construcción de autovías y nuevas terminales de aeropuertos han vuelto a modificar de forma ostensible la capacidad de movimiento de la población española. Pero, ¿son estos cambios realmente adecuados para las necesidades económicas y sociales de nuestra población?, ¿realmente se han modificado tanto los flujos de movimiento con las nuevas infraestructuras?, o más bien mantenemos una inercia en la forma que se han desarrollado tales infraestructuras, sin cuestionarnos las ventajas ni inconvenientes de determinados proyectos.
Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage
Simulating Roman Economies
Rome was the first empire that through its expansion not only conquered the maritime perimeter of... more Rome was the first empire that through its expansion not only conquered the maritime perimeter of the Mediterranean but also occupied inland territories far away from the Mediterranean shore. But it was a burdensome task since Rome needed to build an extraordinary communications network that combined sea, river, and land routes in order to achieve this purpose. This chapter tries to analyse the evolution of Roman transport infrastructure in the Iberian Peninsula to detect how different political changes affected the economy and society of this territory as well as the construction and modification of communication routes. This chapter combines archaeological data, demography, and applications of network science analysis of transport networks on the Iberian Peninsula to offer an unprecedented overview of the impact of transport routes on the configuration of the territory. The connectivity of the transport network, which shows the best and worst connected urban settlements, can be re...
Vi Encuentro De Arqueologia Del Suroeste Peninsular 2013 Isbn 978 84 616 6306 4 Pags 1551 1576, 2013
La red de transportes en el Imperio Romano, que englobaba las rutas marítimas, fluviales y terres... more La red de transportes en el Imperio Romano, que englobaba las rutas marítimas, fluviales y terrestres, sirvió para ordenar y organizar los distintos territorios que iban siendo anexionados. Gracias a esta gran red de transportes se pudo mantener la cohesión de una gran extensión territorial, permitiendo la circulación de noticias, personas y mercancías. El análisis de su configuración y funcionamiento nos permiten obtener un nuevo punto de vista acerca de la organización territorial y los transportes, en este caso del Suroeste peninsular en época romana.
RESUMEN: Este trabajo tiene un doble propósito. Por una parte, se presentan métodos de prospecció... more RESUMEN: Este trabajo tiene un doble propósito. Por una parte, se presentan métodos de prospección superficial, geofísica y sondeos que han estado asistidos con tecnologías geoespaciales aplicadas a la Arqueología. Este tipo de intervención destaca por su escasa agresión al subsuelo y al entorno y el requerimiento de recursos temporales y económicos menores a los de otras intervenciones arqueológicas. El segundo objetivo es reflexionar sobre los usos antiguos del suelo, la diacronía y la forma de ocupación de un complejo asentamiento que se data entre los siglos III a. C. y VII d. C., más allá del concepto puntual de yacimiento. Este análisis histórico-arqueológico se puede realizar gracias al registro en detalle de la dispersión de vestigios materiales. Palabras clave: Periodos ibérico y romano. Patrón de asentamiento. SIG. Prospección arqueológica. Usos del suelo. Contestania.
Proceedings of the 1st TIR-FOR Symposium : from territory studies to digital cartography, 2021
Aquitaviae, projet de carte dynamique participative des voies de l'Aquitaine romaine Clement Cout... more Aquitaviae, projet de carte dynamique participative des voies de l'Aquitaine romaine Clement Coutelier, François Didierjean El estudio y diseminación de las vías romanas en la era posdigital: el proyecto Viator-e Pau de Soto sTudies of landscape, seTTlemenT and archaeological Topography in The developmenT of digiTal carTography TIR-FOR (Tabula Imperii Romani-Forma Orbis Romani) and the landscape archaeology in northern Dacia. The case of Potaissa Florin-Gheorghe Fodorean La realización de mapas de densidad para la investigación del poblamiento antiguo. El entorno del Bajo Guadalquivir (SO de España) entre los siglos ii y iv d.C. como caso de análisis
Recogito is an open source tool for the semi-automatic annotation of place references in maps and... more Recogito is an open source tool for the semi-automatic annotation of place references in maps and texts. It was developed as part of the Pelagios 3 research project, which aims to build up a comprehensive directory of places referred to in early maps and geographic writing predating the year 1492. Pelagios 3 focuses specifically on sources from the Classical Latin, Greek and Byzantine periods; on Mappae Mundi and narrative texts from the European Medieval period; on Late Medieval Portolans; and on maps and texts from the early Islamic and early Chinese traditions. Since the start of the project in September 2013, the team has harvested more than 120,000 toponyms, manually verifying almost 60,000 of them. Furthermore , the team held two public annotation workshops supported through the Open Humanities Awards 2014. In these workshops, a mixed audience of students and academics of different backgrounds used Recogito to add several thousand contributions on each workshop day. A number o...
Computational Social Sciences
Social Science History, 2021
Transport routes are basic elements that are inextricably linked to diverse political, economic, ... more Transport routes are basic elements that are inextricably linked to diverse political, economic, and social factors. Transport networks may be the cause or result of complex historical conjunctions that reflect to some extent a structural conception of the political systems that govern each territory. It is for this reason that analyzing the evolution of the transport routes layout in a wide territory allows us to recognize the role of the political organization and its economic influence in territorial design. In this article, the evolution of the transport network in the Iberian Peninsula has been studied in a broad chronological framework to observe how the different political systems of each period understood and modified the transport systems. Subsequently, a second analysis of the evolution of transport networks in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula is included in this article. This more detailed and geographically restricted study allows us to visualize in a different way...
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Abstract This paper attempts to analyse the land transport in Roman times in mountainous areas, t... more Abstract This paper attempts to analyse the land transport in Roman times in mountainous areas, taking into account the most feasible location for the road infrastructures as well as the conditions for different means of transport. With the use of different GIS applications such as LCP (Low Cost Paths) and Network analysis, the study aims to recognise the time, effort and cost that was involved in crossing important mountainous barriers such as the Pyrenees and the Alps. In spite of the lack of an economic return, the Roman Empire invested a lot of resources in building complex infrastructures up in mountainous regions. This paper addresses the reasons behind such an economic effort.
In this paper we describe the process of capture and analysis of low altitude aerial images of th... more In this paper we describe the process of capture and analysis of low altitude aerial images of the site of Contributa Iulia. Specific conditions when these images were taken has led to obtaining a significant amount of data (mainly crop-marks) on the shape and internal structure of the layout of the Roman city and its surroundings. We will explain our strategy to optimize the exploitation of these data in two main lines. First, we have produced several digital surface models and orthoimages that will allow mapping of the visible archaeological marks. Second, we have expanded the possibilities of identifying buried remains. We will show how these results are integrated in a GIS environment, providing selective criteria for the development of geophysical and surface survey. Finally we will raise some questions about the scientific potential of aerial images in our study area.
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM conference on Web science - WebSci '14, 2014
This paper discusses an emerging cloud of Linked Open Data in the humanities sometimes referred t... more This paper discusses an emerging cloud of Linked Open Data in the humanities sometimes referred to as the Graph of Ancient World Data (GAWD). It provides historical background to the domain, before gong on to describe the open and decentralised characteristics which have partially characterised its development. This is done principally through the lens of Pelagios, a collaborative initiative led by the authors which connects online historical resources based on common references to places. The benefits and limitations of the approach are evaluated, in particular its low barrier to entry, open architecture and restricted scope. The paper concludes with a number of suggestion for encouraging the adoption of Linked Open Data within other humanities communities and beyond.
Trabajo presentado a la Reunion Cientifica "Los paisajes agrarios de la romanizacion, arquit... more Trabajo presentado a la Reunion Cientifica "Los paisajes agrarios de la romanizacion, arquitectura y explotacion del territorio II" celebrada en el Alentejo (Portugal) del 24 al 25 de mayo de 2012.
In this paper we have two main objectives. The first is the presentation of fieldwork and geophys... more In this paper we have two main objectives. The first is the presentation of fieldwork and geophysics assisted with GPS, GIS and other Spatial Technologies applied to archaeological research. The advantage of this approach is the scarce aggression to soils and environment and the request of smaller economic and temporary resources than other archaeological fieldwork. The second objective is to reflect on ancient land uses, the diachronic sequence and structure of a complex Iberian Iron Age and Roman site of long duration (3rd cent. BC to 7th cent. AD). The accurate mapping of dispersion of the archaeological record allows this kind of historical analysis.
La movilidad es uno de los factores claves a la hora de entender el grado de complementariedad y ... more La movilidad es uno de los factores claves a la hora de entender el grado de complementariedad y cohesion de cualquier Estado. Las politicas de infraestructuras de transporte modelan junto con las con las condiciones geograficas esta movilidad. Este articulo trata de analizar la movilidad en la Peninsula Iberica a lo largo del tiempo, desde epoca romana al siglo XVIII a traves del uso de aplicaciones de redes de SIG (Sistemas de Informacion Geografica. Mobility is one of the key factors to understand the degree of complementarity and cohesion of any State. Policies of transport infrastructures model such mobility together with geographical conditions. This paper attempts to analyze mobility in the Iberian Peninsula over the time from Roman period to the XVIIIth century by employing network applications of GIS (Geographical Information Systems).
Resumen del trabajo presentado al VI Encuentro de Arqueologia del Suroeste Peninsular, celebrado ... more Resumen del trabajo presentado al VI Encuentro de Arqueologia del Suroeste Peninsular, celebrado en Villafranca de los Barros (Badajoz) del 4 al 6 de octubre de 2012.-- et al.
Trabajo presentado al Leipzig eHumanities Seminar celebrado el 12 de diciembre de 2012 en Leipzig... more Trabajo presentado al Leipzig eHumanities Seminar celebrado el 12 de diciembre de 2012 en Leipzig (Alemania).
International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing
This article provides a short history of the methods and tools developed by the Pelagios initiati... more This article provides a short history of the methods and tools developed by the Pelagios initiative: a series of seven projects dedicated to linking digital historical resources based on the geographic places to which they relate and refer. The first section of the article situates the work within the wider field of semantic and geospatial technologies. It then describes the initial development of the Pelagios methodology through an open consortium of ancient Mediterranean data resource providers, in association with the Pleiades Gazetteer of the Ancient World. The second section details how this approach was expanded for application in other historical and archaeological periods and domains, with a special focus on tool development. In particular, we reflect on the development and application of Recogito, an online semantic geoannotation platform that allows anyone to identify place references within historical texts, imagery or datasets.
International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing
This article, which forms the second part of a two-part article in this volume, reflects on what ... more This article, which forms the second part of a two-part article in this volume, reflects on what we argue to be the most crucial element of any Linked Data enterprise: its community. The first section discusses a variety of funded and unfunded activities conducted under the aegis of Pelagios, and specifically two ‘small grant’ programmes that dramatically expanded its scope and reach. The second section describes the evolution of Pelagios as a ‘community of practice’, in which the work of the initiative, conceived of in terms of both method and tool development, has been facilitated by, and coordinated with, individuals and groups external to its investigative teams. This growing and maturing community has ultimately been realized in the foundation of a formal voluntary organization: the Pelagios Network Association. The paper concludes with brief reflections on some interlinked sister initiatives that have emerged from the Pelagios community and continue to support scholars and pra...
Prospectando en un terreno hostil: nuevos trabajos geofísicos desarrollados en las fortificacione... more Prospectando en un terreno hostil: nuevos trabajos geofísicos desarrollados en las fortificaciones ciclópeas de La Serena (Badajoz)