ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the Expert Seminar, from which its papers derive, was held in Sheffield on 19 to 21 April 2006. It brought together two communities of research practitioners in the humanities – archaeologists and historians. Both are engaged in interpreting the past. Computational science and informatics is concerned essentially with representation. Machines can only undertake calculations, handle data, search text or form analogue images if they are represented for them in numeric form. That process of representation involves language and selection – implying culture, thought and choice. Both archaeologists and historians are also confronted by the issue of representation: that of the past. The book describes the issue is not the 'realism' or the 'objectivity' of the representation in question – the methodologies, tools and applications of advanced computing assists to make sense of the incomplete, contradictory or doctored evidence of the past.
