ERIC Number: EJ1120525
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Nov
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0364-0213
EISSN: N/A
Archaeology through Computational Linguistics: Inscription Statistics Predict Excavation Sites of Indus Valley Artifacts
Recchia, Gabriel L.; Louwerse, Max M.
Cognitive Science, v40 n8 p2065-2080 Nov 2016
Computational techniques comparing co-occurrences of city names in texts allow the relative longitudes and latitudes of cities to be estimated algorithmically. However, these techniques have not been applied to estimate the provenance of artifacts with unknown origins. Here, we estimate the geographic origin of artifacts from the Indus Valley Civilization, applying methods commonly used in cognitive science to the Indus script. We show that these methods can accurately predict the relative locations of archeological sites on the basis of artifacts of known provenance, and we further apply these techniques to determine the most probable excavation sites of four sealings of unknown provenance. These findings suggest that inscription statistics reflect historical interactions among locations in the Indus Valley region, and they illustrate how computational methods can help localize inscribed archeological artifacts of unknown origin. The success of this method offers opportunities for the cognitive sciences in general and for computational anthropology specifically.
Descriptors: Archaeology, Computational Linguistics, Statistics, Diachronic Linguistics, Geography, Non Western Civilization, Cognitive Science, Research Methodology
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A