Assyrian merchants meet nuclear physicists: history of the early contributions from social sciences to computer science. The case of automatic pattern detection in graphs (1950s–1970s)

Abstract

Community detection is a major issue in network analysis. This paper combines a socio-historical approach with an experimental reconstruction of programs to investigate the early automation of clique detection algorithms, which remains one of the unsolved NP-complete problems today. The research led by the archaeologist Jean-Claude Gardin from the 1950s on non-numerical information and graph analysis is retraced to demonstrate the early contributions of social sciences and humanities. The limited recognition and reception of Gardin's innovative computer application to the humanities are addressed through two factors, in addition to the effects of historiography and bibliographies on the recording, discoverability, and reuse of scientific productions: (1) funding policies, evidenced by the transfer of research effort on graph applications from temporary interdisciplinary spaces to disciplinary organizations related to the then-emerging field of computer science; and (2) the erratic careers of algorithms, in which efficiency, flaws, corrections, and authors' status, were determining factors.

What Makes the Identity of a Scientific Method? A History of the “Structural and Analytical Typology” in the Growth of Evolutionary and Digital Archaeology in Southwestern Europe (1950s–2000s)

“…[langage descriptif]") (BoRillo, M., 1970, Problèmes de méthode liés à la mise en oeuvre de procédures formelles et de techniques de traitement de l'information en archéologie, 1C1 box 38, Msh). Borillo was then a member of the Centre d'analyse documentaire pour l'archéologie in Marseilles, a research centre directed by Jean-Claude Gardin (see Moscati 2016, Plutniak 2021b.…”