International Events, such as Conferences and Exhibitions, characterise the history of archaeological computing. Starting in the 1950s, a number of conferences addressed both data automation and the application of quantitative methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences, giving rise to two separate phenomena. First of all, the distinction between the automatic processing of scientific information and the application of statistical techniques. Secondly, the blurring of the boundaries between all Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines, which were moving together towards the new solutions offered by the application of quantitative methods and computer science.
By retracing the unfolding of international events, it is also possible to learn more about the history of pioneering scholars. Individually involved as full participants, they became promoters of innovative methods of research within a broader movement of ideas that contributed to changing the theoretical and methodological position of archaeological scholarship.
International exhibitions, often promoted and organised thanks to the sponsorship of private companies, started to spread in the second half of the 1980s and fully developed in the following decades. The main aim was to show how computers could play an active role in the study and dissemination of archaeological evidence and how interactive and multimedia technologies could involve visitors in reconstructing the past.