KIVA: an archaeological interpreter

By

Jitu Patel and Arthur Stutt

HCRL Technical Report No. 35
June, 1988

Abstract:

We present a system which simulates the interpretation of archaeological sites. Previous systems in archaeology have performed lower-level classificatory tasks. The present system - KIVA - combines data-driven and expectation-based reasoning to produce an overall interpretation of a given site (i.e., a cultural profile). In this approach, a model of a typical archaeological site is utilized in order to provide the constraints necessary to deal with the inherent uncertainty of archaeological interpretation.

Keywords: Archaeological interpretation, expectation-based reasoning, reducing uncertainty.