AEA NEWS

The AEA Virtual Spring Conference will be taking place online on 13 May 2023, with optional Basic R training sessions on 14 and 15 May 2023. 

Title: Data Science in Environmental Archaeology

Organisers: Emma Karoune, Matt Law

Following our highly successful spring conference in 2021 on Open Science Practices in Environmental Archaeology, we want to extend this topic by focusing this year's spring conference on the applications of and innovations in data science approaches to environmental archaeology. 

In this conference we would like to explore how environmental archaeologists as a community are dealing with data and using data in their research. This is data science in the broad sense. We are looking for new directions and initiatives around data science, including new methods and types of analysis, new ways to manage data, implementation of new data stewardship approaches, and new ways to share and publish data. 

Data is at the heart of all of our research and it is a precious commodity that should be treated with the same care as archaeological remains. To get the most out of our data and to be able to integrate different types of data together, we need to think about how it is structured and how we can best manage data. As the size and breadth of data grows, what new ways can be developed to interrogate our data to generate new insights? What new perspectives from the past emerge from bringing disparate datasets together or re-analysing existing datasets? And what are these new approaches that we might want to exploit for data integration and novel research?

We are looking for papers that consider:

• new methods of data management and stewardship, such how we can use the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable; Wilkinson et al. 2016) data and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics; Carroll et al. 2022 ) principles
• standard vocabularies and ontologies
• new types of data analysis methods 
• statistical modelling and ‘big data’ methods
• machine-learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applications 
• the integration of different types of data to answer archaeological questions in novel ways.

We are equally interested in hearing about new research directions in this topic from early career researchers and established innovators.

Please submit your details with a title and abstract using this form: https://forms.gle/MBQ7gLaqzU9opZLe7.

Deadline for paper submission is 31 March 2023.

General queries about the conference can be addressed to ekaroune@turing.ac.uk.

The 42nd Conference of the Association for Environmental Archaeology will be held on 2–4 December 2022, with an optional fieldtrip on Monday 5 December 2022

Title: The environmental archaeology of landscapes and land-use 

Host institutions: University of Glasgow and University of Pennsylvania, USA (remotely)

Organisers: Nicki Whitehouse, Matt Jacobson, Gareth Beale (University of Glasgow); Xiaolin Ren (University of Glasgow and Chinese Academy of Sciences); Kathy Morrison (University of Pennsylvania) 

Website:  

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/archaeologyresearch/latestnews/headline_859669_en.html

Humans do not live in isolation from nature. In this conference, we would like to explore our changing relationships with landscapes and land-use, and consider how humans and non-humans have developed entangled and complex relationships with other beings. We are interested in the ways archaeology can enable us to examine these relationships in the past, especially when it comes to more creative ways to think about landscapes and human activities within them. 

An important area where we have impacted landscapes is around changing land-use, often instigated by agricultural practices. What have the effects of these activities been on our landscapes and how have these been shaped by cultural activities and human agency? Major historical transitions, such as the start of the Neolithic, and technological advances, such as intensification of agriculture or urbanisation processes, have driven major changes in land-use. Thus, human land-use activities are known drivers of vegetation change and can also produce potentially significant levels of greenhouse gases. How can we improve our understanding of these effects from analyses of archaeological and palaeoecological records? 

Finally, an additional interest is around what we can learn from approaches developed within the digital humanities, for example, in thinking about and interpreting human relationships to landscapes and places? 

The conference will showcase research that explores our relationships to landscapes and land-use to consider how we have shaped our modern world and its current ecological and climate crisis. We are interested in hearing about research that investigates the environmental archaeology of landscapes and land-use studies that utilise archaeological and historical evidence, including texts, maps, images, settlement datasets, artefacts, plant and animal remains, biomolecular evidence, taking a variety of perspectives; we are also keen to welcome contributions from the digital humanities that engage with these lines of evidence as well as the broader themes of the conference. 

We are looking for papers that consider:

• human-induced changes to landscapes, land-use and environments at all scales 
• How human activities have shaped our cultural landscapes
• engagement with more-than-human and multi-species approaches that offer new ways of thinking about our past landscapes and place in the world
• how past land-use change is a major driver of our current ecological and climate crisis
• the creative ways offered for exploring and understanding past landscapes and land-use through digital media 
• what lessons can be learnt by bringing together different focal approaches towards a more sustainable, culturally informed future.

The deadline for abstracts is now closed. 

Conference programme 

The conference will start early evening on Friday 2 December 2022, opening with a keynote lecture and followed by a wine reception at the University of Glasgow. The main conference programme will follow over 3–4 December, finishing by 4pm. There will be a conference dinner on the evening of 3 December (up to 60 participants).

On Monday 5 December there will be an optional fieldtrip to Kilmartin Glen and nearby monuments; this will be led by Dr Kenny Brophy and Dr Nicki Whitehouse, with a stop en route at Inveraray. 

The final programme is available to download.

A livestream link for the conference is available to AEA members via the members' page.  Please note, however, that there is no technical support for this system.  The livestream is offered free of charge to AEA members, but the conference organisers are not able to deal with any issues related to it.

The deadline for registration has now passed.

General queries about the conference and programme can be addressed to nicki.whitehouse@glasgow.ac.uk