Virtual models for archaeology

Archaeological excavations are complex activities, fostering the collaboration of a number of different institutions, organizations and individuals. The seamless organization of an excavation may benefit from the use of a virtual model, which can be adjusted to the specific needs of the project. Defining a model of such activities may help to anticipate the appropriate steps necessary, in order to avoid problems and delays and, more importantly, can be reused and adjusted for further projects. In this paper we attempt to promote the use of virtual breeding environments and virtual organizations as a modelling framework for the managerial aspects of archaeological excavations and we illustrate the flexibility of the framework by applying it to different scenarios. Our analysis also shows that the standard notion of virtual organizations needs to be extended in order to cope with specific aspects of archaeological excavations.