A Survey of the Development of Computer Applications in Romanian
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Virgil Mih àilescu-Bîrliba A Survey of the Development of Computer Vasile Chirica Applications in Romanian Archaeology 1 Introduction part. The proceedings were published in the following year Situated in southeast Europe, Romania has been from the (Hodson et al. 1971). The papers included dealt with cluster oldest times a region favourable to man’s life, as well as to analysis, seriation, and the identification of tree structures. cultural contacts and influences. As a result of this, The editors wrote: archaeological remains are extremely rich and diverse. ‘the first point made by the contributors to this volume is that Before the Second World War, Romanian archaeological statistical methods, quantification and computer processing of data research followed the general development of the discipline do not suddenly transform history from a subjective to an objective elsewhere in Europe. After the Second World War, when study... [because] such mathematical analyses... [are] capable only the communist system was created in Romania, this natural of reducing the level of uncertainty’. development stopped. First of all, the relationship with the (Edinburgh University Press, 1971: dust-jacket). West was broken, and later, after Ceau≥escu’s National Socialist regime took power, contacts with other socialist Nine Romanian archaeological papers by twelve authors countries were cut to a minimum. Although the progress of were published. The themes presented at this conference human thought can be hindered by such obstructions, it included: ‘Some mathematical aspects of taxonomy and cannot be irrevocably stopped. Inevitable technical progress, diagnosis in archaeology’ (Manolescu/Bordenache 1971), although slow, and the permanent searching process which ‘Discrimination and classification of certain types of is a general feature of the human mind, led to Romanian pottery’ (Savu 1971), ‘Applications of mathematical researchers becoming interested in computer applications methods to epigraphy’ (≤tefan 1971a), ‘Some possibilities and quantitative methods in archaeology. for using the volume of information in archaeology and history’ (Oprescu 1971) and so on. Some of these studies 2 The beginnings moved beyond mathematical methodological considerations The first studies concerning the application of quantitative and dealt with real archaeological problems. Examples methods in archaeology and related sciences were included how one could infer the cultural origin of the spontaneous and disorganised. The use of mathematical group of artefacts from the Middle Bronze Age when this models was necessary in those fields of research where origin is uncertain, through their assimilation with large numbers of similar objects existed. This is why the ‘inference problems’ or ‘Federal problem’ and solve this first applications of statistical methods was in numismatics using Bayes’ theorem (Iosifescu/T autu 1971); and the (Mih ailescu-Bîrliba 1969). chronological seriation of Greek inscriptions using the At the same time, the end of the 1960s, at the Mathe- methods elaborated by Hole and Shaw (1967) for archaeo- matics Institute of the Romanian Academy, Professor logical sites, adapted for epigraphy (Kivu-Sculy 1971; Grigore Moisil started a course in mathematical methods ≤tefan 1971a, 1971b). for archaeologists and numismatists from Bucharest. Some joint projects between mathematicians and archaeologists 3 Stagnation were completed and it seemed that a period of favourable Naturally, after the Mamaia conference, the application of co-operation was beginning. mathematical methods in archaeology should have grown On the initiative of the same great Romanian rapidly. Unfortunately, this did not happen because politics mathematician, the Romanian Academy and the Royal interfered again. Immediately after Professor Moisil’s death Society of London organised the Anglo-Romanian in 1973, the Mathematics Institute of Bucharest was Conference on Mathematics in the Archaeological and dissolved, the buildings and computers were given to other Historical Sciences, which took place in 1970 at Mamaia institutions and the researchers were sent to work in other (near Constan †a, ancient Tomis). Numerous well-known towns or factories. What had happened? Ceau≥escu’s researchers, both from Europe and other continents, took daughter, who was working at the Institute, had a ‘strange 526 ANALECTA PRAEHISTORICA LEIDENSIA 28 adventure’ which annoyed her father. After visiting the analysis with VARIMAX rotation, and seriation methods in Institute he decided to close it down. During this period, a the classification of archaeological materials; St anescu ‘mini-cultural revolution’ was underway. Any possible (1990) examined the possible astronomical significance of opponent had to be eliminated and intellectuals were the sacred precinct at the late Iron Age site of Sarmizege - particularly targeted. Everybody had to know that there was tusa Regia; 2 Bl ajan, Oproiu and Popa (1990) investigated only one omnipotent master. the orientation of graves in the early medieval cemetery at A period of stagnation, which lasted for more than a Alba Iulia; Dumitrescu and Lazarovici (1990) proposed a decade, followed. However, progress could not be stopped new fuzzy clustering procedure for archaeological data; entirely and there were individual efforts during those Margineanu-Cârstoiu, Harhoiu and Cârstoiu (1990) years. Thus, at the Institute of Archaeology in Ia≥i, C atalina undertook a comparison of various multivariate data Blo≥iu proposed a general system model of archaeological reduction methods including principal components analysis, data computer processing. The proposed system relied upon correspondence analysis, and classic and non-metric standardised descriptions which then may be used as a basis multidimensional scaling; Morariu, Salvanu and Frangopol for information retrieval, and with the advantage of (1990) undertook a dimensional analysis of pottery and automatic generation of catalogues (Blo≥iu 1972-1973). Ri≥cu †ia et al. (1990) performed an archaeometric Alexandra ≤tefan also continued to work on a method of investigation of human groups and produced cladogram chronological seriation of Greek inscriptions (unpublished). projections on time co-ordinates. An information system for Unfortunately, their emigration from Romania put an end to archaeology called BAZARH was presented for the first these projects. In 1979, a ‘Round Table’ was held in Paris time. This project was established at the History Department on the theme ‘Statistics and Numismatics’ (Carcassonne/ of the Museum of History of Transylvania. The BAZARH Hackens 1981) and papers were presented by Mih ailescu- system had three components: a database, a knowledge Bîrliba (1981, 1981-1982) and Poenaru Bordea (1981). base, and an expert system for analysing the information in Both papers examined statistical methods for numismatics. the knowledge and databases. Data processing varies from statistics and simple classification to complex mathematical 4 A new beginning analyses (Kalmar/Corbu 1990). From the start of the 1980s, computer applications in There were other projects developing computer appli- archaeology again began to expand and some research cations in this period, but they were not satisfactorily teams were founded. A strong team was instituted at the developed, or were abandoned due to a lack of hardware Information Centre for Culture and Heritage (CIMEC ). and software (e.g., Cârstoiu 1990; Dumistr acel/Mantu CIMEC , led by Dan Matei and Irina Oberländer-Târnoveanu, 1987; Harhoiu 1990; M argineanu-Cârstoiu 1990). is responsible for the development and administration of the National Cultural Information System (Oberländer- 5 The Present Day Târnoveanu this volume). SI -PCN was designed and tested The revolution of 1989 has brought some major benefits. from 1978 to 1981 1 and implemented over several years, One of them is the free circulation of people, information beginning in 1982. and technology, and a freedom of initiative. Consequently, Another research centre was founded at Cluj-Napoca in 1992, CIMEC organised the Eastern and Central where archaeologists such as Gh. Lazarovici and Z. Kalmar, European Regional Conference on Museum and Cultural from the Museum of the History of Transylvania, started Heritage in Sinaia ( RECOMDOC 1992). On this occasion co-operating closely with mathematicians and physicists CIMEC ’s computer based projects were presented. These from the Institute of Isotopic and Molecular Technology, are large! About 28 experts work at CIMEC. The National Cluj; the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Cluj and the Cultural Information System ( SI-PCN ) is the largest in Institute of Nuclear Engineering, Bucure≥ti-M agurele. As a southeast Europe and the fourth largest in the world. The result of this close co-operation two national conferences on database has 740,000 entities recorded in machine readable the application of physics and mathematics in archaeology form and about 740,000 data entry cards await processing. were organised, both in Cluj-Napoca, in 1987 and 1989. It also includes a museums reference database with 1,500 The papers have been published in two volumes of items of information about museum services; museums proceedings (Frangopol/Morariu 1988, 1990). activities data collections; museum professionals’ reference These two conferences in Cluj give a clear picture of the databases (for about 2,000 Romanian specialists); and a stage of Romanian research in this field before