Towards a domain ontology dedicated to the description of anthropogenic traces in rock art

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Towards a domain ontology dedicated to the description of anthropogenic traces in rock art

Alexandra Stoleru

To cite this version:

Alexandra Stoleru. Towards a domain ontology dedicated to the description of anthropogenic traces in rock art. DARIAH Annual Event 2019: Humanities Data, May 2019, Varsovie, Poland. �hal-02319403�

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DOMAIN ONTOLOGY

Description of Anthropogenic CIDOC-CRM and Extensions

Cultural Heritage Documentation

TOP LEVEL ENTITIES [3]

E55 Type Conceptual E28

Temporal EntityE2

Physical ObjectE18

AppellationE41

ActorE39 E52

Time Span E53

Place

CONTROLLED VOCABULARY

& SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENTATION

CONCEPTUAL MODELLING

CLASSES

refer to / identify

refer to / refine carried by

affect / involve affect / involve

participate in

within

at

location

A. B.

ALIGNMENT

CLASSES AND PROPERTIES C.

DOMAIN TERMINOLOGY

TOWARDS A DOMAIN ONTOLOGY DEDICATED TO THE DESCRIPTION OF ANTHROPOGENIC TRACES in rock art

INTRODUCTION / CONTEXT

Around 178 Paleolithic caves and rock-shelters are scattered around the French territory. The former represent a particularly sensitive heritage. Their study can be quite complex, involving experts from a variety of scientific fields that can vary from a cave to another (ar- chaeologists, geologists, climatologists, microbiologists, etc.). The collaboration of these multidisciplinary teams is however com- plexified by the diversity of their work supports or formats and by the disparity of the produced documents.

The question that arises concerns the semantic articulation^of

the analysis elements produced by the experts and therefore the

structuration of heterogeneous data^.

The cross-referencing of the information that is produced becomes essential for an overall understanding. A proposal based on the use of a conceptual model formalising the knowledge of the expert field is thus envisaged. This resides in a domain ontology^{, a}

knowledge model designed to meet the above-mentioned need for semantic structuration of the collected data (fig. 1).

STATE OF THE ART

Anthropogenic traces are the main reason for specialists’ ac- corded interest in Paleolithic caves. This is also reflected in the survey methods. Oscar Fuentes thus distinguishes two types of sur- veys : the plastic analytical^{and the}technical analytical^survey

[1]. The former translates the traces in an aesthetic way, the Paleo- lithic traces being at the heart of the study. In the second approach, they are given the same level of importance as their support, or the rock stigmas. The graphic entity thus becomes the result of a pro- cess and not the entry point.

As a bearer of an aesthetic but also symbolic value, the description of cave art is subject to interpretation. The classification of traces types often requires the creation of new terms, terms that do not always enjoy consensus. In addition, the controlled vocabulary

existing in the archaeological field is insufficiently oriented towards the description of anthropogenic traces and cave art analysis in general.

METHODOLOGY

The ambition is therefore to create a domain ontology dedicated to the description of anthropogenic traces. This work is largely based on the approach developed for the domain ontology built as part of the ANR MONUMENTUM project [2]. In order to do so, we relied on the structure of archaeological context sheets and the scientific literature of the domain to reveal the knowledge^do-

main and model the top-level classes of the ontology, their properties and sub-classes (fig. 2.A.). The ambition is for the domain ontology to be merged later with CIDOC-CRM, the conceptual reference model for cultural heritage information and its extensions (fig. 2.B., 2.C.).

FIRST RESULTS

This allowed us to model 5 conceptual classes, considered as being necessary and sufficient for the description of anthropic traces, as well as the properties that structure them (fig. 3) : Al- teration, Support, Anthropogenic Trace, Realisation Tech- nique, Theme^.

The main question that arrised during the modelling of these concepts concerned the status of the anthropogenic traces. The latter could indeed be considered as a form of rock alteration. It was however decided that a distinction is to be made, Paleolithic graphic entities are of an incommensurably artistic, historical and cultural value. Ancient anthropogenic traces are thus at the heart of this ontology. The subclasses of these thematic concepts are thereafter structured into a conceptual mapping (fig. 4).

REFERENCES

[1] FUENTES, Oscar, 2017. La 3D et l’étude de l’art pariétal, ses apports et ses limites. In press.

National Center for Prehistory, Ministry of Culture, France.

[2] MESSAOUDI, Tommy, VÉRON, Philippe, HALIN, Gilles et DE LUCA, Livio, 2018. An on- tological model for the reality-based 3D annotation of heritage building conservation state. In : Journal of Cultural Heritage. 2018. Vol. 29, p. 100-112. DOI 10.1016/j.culher.2017.05.017.

[3] BRUSEKER, George, CARBONI, Nicola et GUILLEM, Anaïs, 2017. Cultural Heritage Data Management: The Role of Formal Ontology and CIDOC CRM. In : M.L. Vincent et al. (eds.), Heritage and Archaeology in the Digital Age: Acquisition, Curation, and Dissemination of Spa- tial Cultural Heritage Data. Cham : Springer International Publishing. Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-65370-9_6

[4] MANUEL, Adeline, ALAOUI M’DARHRI, Anas, ABERGEL, Violette, ROZAR, Fabien et DE LUCA, Livio, 2018. Quantitative Analysis and semi-automatic annotation of spatialized data.

In : In press. San Francisco, USA : IEEE. 2018.

ALTERATION SUPPORT ANTHROPOGENIC TRACE REALISATION TECHNIQUE actOn

isAlteredBy

isCarriedBy isCreatedUsing

carries isUsedToCreate

THEME isThemeFor

hasTheme

ANCIENT TRACE

RECENT TRACE

Figure 3. Conceptual model of the top-level classes of the domain ontology and their properties

Figure 4. Conceptual model of the classes tree developped in French

ALEXANDRA STOLERU

Altération

Support

Technique de réalisation

Thématique

Trace anthropique Naturelle

Traces animale

Roche ignée/ magmatique

Roche sédimentaire

Roche métamorphique

Ajout de matière

Enlèvement de matière

Figuratif

Abstrait / Non figuratif Indéterminé

Trace anthropique ancienne

Trace anthropique récente Fissure et déformation

Détachement

Figures induites par une perte de matière

Altération chromatique et dépôt

Colonisation biologique

Griffades Poils Guano

Granit Basalte

Grès et roches silicieuses

Roche carbonatée

Ardoise, Shale et Schiste

Ardoise, Shale et Schiste Gneiss

Marbre

Peinture

Gravure

Sculpture

Figure animale

Figure humaine

Figure imaginaire / composite

Signe

Structuré Non structuré

Peinture

Gravure

Courbe

Graffitis Traces de crayonnage Fissure

Déformation

Boursouflure Eclatement Délitage

Désagrégation

Fragmentation

Pelage Desquamation

Alvéolisation

Erosion

Dégât mécanique

Microkarst Partie manquante

Perforation Pitting Croûte

Dépôt

Altération chromatique

Efflorescence Encroûtement

Film Aspect luisant Graffiti Patine

Encrassement Subflorescence

Colonisation biologique Algue

Lichen Mousse Moisissure Plante

Calcaire gréseu/ détritique Calcaire marbrier Calcaire non marbrier

Appliquée Soufflée Tracée

Raclage Digité Piquetage Incision

Modelage Taille

Bestiaire

Créature composite anthropomorphe Animaux composites

Animaux irréels

Monochrome Bichrome Polychrome

Superficielle Profonde

Angulaire

Bi-angulaire

Courbe

Fracture Fissuration en étoile Microfissure Craquellement Clivage

Exfoliation

Désagrégation granulaire

Fragmentation en esquilles Epaufrure

Ecaillage

Desquamation en plaque Creusement Erosion différentielle

Erosion en boule Augmentation en rugosité

Trace d'impact Incision Rayure Abrasion Bûchage

Trou

Croûte noire Croûte saline

Coloration Décoloration

Assombrissement dû à l'humidité Tache

Concrétion

Patine ferrugineuse Patine d'oxalates

Auroch Ave

Bovidé

Eléphantidés Equidé Canidé

Capridé Cervidé

Félin Rhinocérotidé

Suidé Ursidé

Indéterminé

Asymétrique À un bord modelé Aux deux bords modelés À un bord abaissé

À bords évasés (modelés, abaissés)

Asymétrique À un bord modelé Aux deux bords modelés À un bord abaissé Pulvérulence_Farinage Désagrégation sableuse Désagrégation saccharoïde

Perte de constituants Perte de matrice

Oiseau

Bison Bouquetin Bos

Ovibos / Boeuf musqué Mammouth Cheval Loup

Mégacéros Cerf

Rhinocéros Sanglier Ours Thing

MAP-Aria UMR 3495 CNRS/MC, Lyon, France alexandra.stoleru@lyon.archi.fr

Figure 1. Diagram illustrating the production of heterogeneous data following the analysis of multidisciplinary experts

ANTHROPOGENIC TRACE

EXPERT 1

EXPERT 2

EXPERT 3 DOMAIN ONTOLOGY

ANALYSES

PRODUCES

ANALYSES

i.e. ANALYTICAL DATA i.e. DATA SETS, 3D POINT CLOUDS

i.e. DOCUMENTARY SOURCES

INTEGRATION

CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES

The domain ontology can serve as a basis for an eventual infor- mation system and is a response to a need for semantic struc- turing of heterogeneous data. This articulation of the analytical elements produced within a domain is indeed interesting from the perspective of the extraction of new knowledge resulting from data cross-referencing^.

A first perspective is the implementation of the domain ontology in an information system dedicated to the study of heritage objects [4] in order to structure spatialised semantic annotations^{. A}

system based on annotations made on 3D point clouds organised using a domain ontology could facilitate the crossing of these diffe- rent information layers. Correlations between the domain ontology and archaeological databases can furthermore be performed using SQL/SPARQL mappings. Finally, the question of the vi- sualisation of this data must be addressed, particularly from the perspective of information cross-referencing.

Figure 2. Objective and adopted methodology