Alle origini della storia dell'informatica archeologica: attualità di uno scambio epistolare tra Jean-Claude Gardin e René Ginouvès

This paper draws on the exchange of letters between Jean-Claude Gardin and René Ginouvès in the early 1970s, that is, in a crucial period marking the inception of archaeological computing. The letters, kept at the Service des Archives of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (MSH) Mondes in Nanterre, address issues related to the theoretical and operational aspects of scientific documentation in the Humanities, ranging from their initiation to automation, the changing ways and procedures of organizing archaeological research, and the advent of computer applications in classical archaeology. They also pose a series of questions on a horizon that extends to epistemological problems and aspects of cultural policy, at a time of revolution prompted by the development of technological methods and tools and their application in the scientific research. After more than fifty years since the exchange between the two French scholars, it is fair to ask what are the key topics that shaped a new consciousness of the "computational" dimension of archaeology to be forged over time. Since the technological apparatus alone does not constitute the object of a cognitive analysis, some theoretical aspects emerge that underlie the application of computer science: language theory, models, logic, computability and complexity. Some of them are examined in this paper with reference to archaeological practice, emphasising and updating the issues of data encoding, models and management systems, languages and multimedia.