The MedAfriCarbon Radiocarbon Database and Web Application. Archaeological Dynamics in Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600–700 BC
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The MedAfriCarbon radiocarbon database and its accompanying web application are outcomes of the MedAfrica project — Archaeological deep history and dynamics of Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600–700 BC. The dataset presented here in Version 1.0 of the database includes 1587 archaeological 14C dates from 368 sites in Mediterranean Africa. The database is unusual because the majority of the dates within it have been annotated with further cultural and environmental variables, notably the presence/absence of different domestic/wild species and particular material culture traits. MedAfriCarbon also includes an publicly-accessible web application that facilitates data exploration and informal analysis. Funding statement: The Leverhulme Trust provided the core funding for the Archaeological deep history and dynamics of Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600–700 BC (MedAfrica) Research Project (RPG-2016-261). Additional financial support for the project came from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and IPOCAN, MIUR project, via ISMEO (the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies). ISMEO financially covered the publication costs of this open-access paper.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.070 | 0.033 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".