grim sad tale

[Vittorio Fronza]

Perfectly agree with Giancarlo (and with Popper obviously; by the way, what
is it, some kind of drug?), especially about the fact that
>...there are only problems and the urge to solve them.
but there are
>plenty of archaeologists that do not have scientific problems to solve.
That was exactly one of my starting points in the last post, together with
the fact that there is not only one way to solve them.
I'm also convinced we should always remember that
> there is nothing more scientifically sticked to tradition than computer
>sciences. 

On the other hand, i'm not sure that there is no real difference between
team A and B; may be we could say that team B SHOULD use computers to manage
and RETRIEVE data (therefore using the same methodology they would apply
without computers, only with different and more efficient means) while team
A DOES use them to manage and ANALYZE (applying different methodologies
mostly derived from other disciplines). In both cases (and i guess this is
what Giancarlo was trying to say) technology is not the discriminating
point. We are just talking about the same tool being used for very different
purposes, both making sense. What i wanted to say was simply that team A has
a very low concept of the use of computers made by team B, while it could be
of great help in alphabetising (willingly or unwillingly) the whole
community. Moreover, i think that there aren't only team A and B, but also
team AB, AAB, BA, BBA, etc. and this isn't all together a bad thing as long
as there is some kind of interaction.

Anyway, i think that our list should deal also with these problems, trying
to put the premises for a useful and correct application of technology in
ARCHAEOLOGY; but i'm sure that there's a long way to go, and may be some of
our disinteresting attitudes don't really shorten the path. Six or seven
years ago i remember Zoran Stancic trying to tell the italian medieval
archaeologists that we shouldn't use the expression "new technology"
anymore, since it already was to be considered the present (if i remember
right it was at the SAMI meeting in Brescia); if that's absolutely true in a
technological perspective, may be that word NEW still fits nowadays under an
archaeological point of view, at least for what Giancarlo calls the B team.
That's one of the things we should really work on. Let's try to get more
practical in the next posts; if anyone agrees at all on the several points
that have been raised, let's try to formulate some proposals on how to go
about it.

Vittorio Fronza