digital archaeology (Other Keyword)
26-50 (312 Records)
Inka khipus--the knot and cord recording devices of the Andes--have been said to have recorded everything from accounting, to histories and songs. Leland Locke demonstrated in the 1920s that Inka khipu knots often have standard numerical values. However, non-numerical Inka khipu signs remain elusive and undeciphered. Recent work by Gary Urton, however, has identified Inka khipus and individual khipu cords with knots that do not obey the standard numerical rules Locke identified. May Inka khipu...
Are We Living in a Simulation? Digital Reconstructions of Early Sites in Coastal Peru (2018)
Rapidly evolving modern technology has resulted in powerful tools for preserving and visualizing archaeological materials. Extensively recording a site with digital technologies enables new explorations of site discovery and recovery processes while concurrently providing a permanent, detailed record of the material. Here, Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene maritime sites in coastal Peru are reconstructed at various scales. Drone photography and GIS are utilized to collect high-resolution...
Are websites doing what we want them to do? Evaluating the effectiveness of websites for public archaeology (2016)
Archaeologists widely incorporate websites into public archaeology projects and rely on them as primary vehicles for connecting with the non-archaeologist public for many reasons: they are relatively inexpensive to create, adaptable to most any content, and potentially accessed by a global population. While websites have great potential for advancing public understanding of the human past, to date there has been little consideration of what makes a “good” public archaeology website. Our project...
Arisen from the Ashes: Archaeology as Tabletop Gaming in “The Age of Silence” (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. “The Age of Silence” is an ongoing “Dungeons and Dragons” campaign in which players’ final challenge will be decolonization amid apocalyptic war, either leading a cultural revolution, or joining the forgotten beneath the ashen waste. Realistic material culture is central to the campaign, with...
Artifact Ubiquity as an Index of Ancient Maya Socioeconomic Variability at Actuncan, Belize (2018)
The Actuncan Archaeological Project has conducted ten field seasons of research at this ancient lowland Maya site in Belize, Central America and inventoried all artifact classes including ceramics, lithics, marine shell, jade, daub, etc. from excavation contexts. One of my research goals was to consolidate this information into a relational Access database so that project members could more easily analyze artifacts across contexts and time periods. The database allowed me to construct...
Assessing and Communicating Natural Disaster Threats with Digital Technologies (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Recent Directions in Florida’s Historical Archaeology", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Digital archaeology provides a powerful method for communicating the threats associated with natural disasters and sea level rise to the public. Static graphics often fail to capture public imagination, and attention to these issues is increasingly problematic as threats are unnecessarily politicized. Digital archaeology,...
Assessing the Effectiveness of Various Scanning Technologies in Digitally Capturing Fingerprints on Corrugated Wares (2018)
Methodological advances in the study of fingerprints by criminologists have revived an interest in using dermatoglyphic evidence to conduct archaeological research. The analysis of fingerprint impressions left in ceramics is being used to investigate topics such as craft specialization and social organization. While most impressions left in ceramics lack the completeness needed to identify individual potters, fragmentary prints can be used to analyze things such as ridge density. Given a large...
At-Risk World Heritage and the Digital Humanities – An Overview of the UC Office of the President’s Research Catalyst Project (2018)
Recent current events have dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of the world's material cultural heritage. Funded by a University of California (UC) Office of the President’s Research Catalyst grant beginning in 2016, the At-Risk Cultural Heritage and the Digital Humanities project catalyzes a collaborative research effort by four UC campuses (San Diego, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Merced) to use cyber-archaeology and computer graphics to document and safeguard virtually some of the most...
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Applications in Archaeology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are becoming essential aspects of archaeological investigation. We review past and current explorations, including the equipment and software available. Future applications for visualizing archaeological data will be investigated in keeping with the SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics.
Automated Identification of Archaeological Features in a Regional Lidar Dataset from Southeastern New Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2014, the Carlsbad Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management acquired 372 square miles of high resolution lidar data in an experimental attempt to map archaeological features over a wide area of southeastern New Mexico. The features of interest were burned rock middens with a distinctive topographic signature. If successful, this effort would have had...
Automatic Classification of Digital Images of Archaeological Arrowheads (2018)
Currently there exist several databases composed of hundreds or thousands of digital images of arrowheads made by different ancient ethnic groups around the world. Extracting information or comparing and classifying the elements of these databases in an efficient and automated way, even without the need of arrowhead’s metadata, would be of great help in carrying out a comprehensive study on this archaeological subject. This work deals with this problem by developing an image processing...
Barree Forge: A Pennsylvania Forge Town (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This thesis proposal considers the Barree Forge and Furnace site located at the Greene Hills Methodist Camp near Alexandria, a town in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. The manufacturing structure participated in Pennsylvania’s Juniata Iron District as one of the top producers of iron throughout the 19th century, reaching peak production during the 1860s...
The Benefits of B Corps for Building Sustainable Social Enterprises in Archaeology (2017)
Within the slender margins of academic archaeology, our funding options are extremely limited. The accepted pathways to sustainability have been institutional support (the academy) or starting a nonprofit. In both cases we all must battle over an ever shrinking grant and philanthropic pool. The alternative is to go for-profit, which has historically meant to become a CRM firm. In the past few years, Benefit corporations (B Corps) have become an international movement for individuals and...
Beothuk Housepits in Virtual Environments (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Hearth and Home in the Indigenous Northeast" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology of interior Newfoundland is a poorly understood subject, and yet, there are more than 70 Beothuk housepits in the Exploits River Valley, comprising the majority of these features. The topography of these features has been recorded using traditional survey methods, producing poor data for spatial and morphological studies. This...
Best Strategies for Field-based Training in Data Recording and Management (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A student’s first experience with archaeological recording is frequently in a field school setting. Yet, field school data recording practices can quickly evolve as archaeological projects integrate new technology, change excavation strategies, and investigate new research questions. How do these...
Beyond Research Design: Digital Resource Management for the Next Generation (2018)
Digital technologies in the field of archaeology have often been promoted as a tool enhancing productivity and efficiency, usually implying that the immediate digital recording of data would allow for the excavation of greater volumes and covering larger areas. Moreover, the strength of Paperless Archaeology comes with the enabling of immediate dissemination of observable data while breaking up the ‘sealed’ relationship between the raw data and the First Interpreter. What remains less...
Beyond Solutionism? Digital Data and Threatened Cultural Heritage (2018)
In his influential book "To Save Everything, Click Here" (2014), Evgeny Morozov coined the term "solutionism" to describe a utopian vision that innovation in digital technologies can solve complex social problems. Fueled by Silicon Valley wealth, digital technologies have an obvious glamor. The high-profile reconstruction of the Palmyra Arch by the Institute for Digital Archaeology exemplifies how governments, universities, corporate sponsors, and granting foundations use media attention on...
Beyond the Wall: Defensive Arrangements, Conflicts and Coexistence Inside an Andean Oasis during the Late Intermediate Period (1100–1450 AD) (2018)
Located on the western foothills of the Andes, in the region of Tacna, the study area seems to have been densely occupied during the Late Intermediate Period (1100–1450 AD) as the recent archaeological research carried out in the area has demonstrated it. The many agricultural terraces and irrigation canals, as well as the numerous residential settlements, some of which are fortified, seem to demonstrate a strong desire for control and management of resources among the different groups occupying...
Boots on the Ground and Planes in the Air: Assessing Damage to Archaeological Sites Caused by the 2011 Missouri River Floods (2015)
In the spring of 2011, the Missouri River Mainstem received unprecedented combination of snow melt and rain causing widespread flooding unseen since the construction of the Missouri River Dams. One of the consequences of the flooding was damage to archaeological sites located on the lands surrounding the reservoirs. As a result, South Dakota State Historical Society (SDSHS) partnered with the University of Arkansas Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) to assess potential damages...
Bringing the Public into the Process: the Montpelier Digital Collections Project and Mere Distinction of Colour Virtual Exhibit (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Digital Technologies and Public Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. When archaeologists and other researchers first entered into the digital world they had an “if you build it they will come” approach to public digital projects. Projects were considered public by simply being on the internet. However, as the digital field has grown it has quickly become evident that the most successful digital...
Building a Database to Understand the Architecture of Arctic Wooden House Remains (2018)
Western Arctic archaeological sites hold the remains of wooden houses occupied during the second millennium AD by ancestors of the present Inuit people. Although the permafrost helps to maintain these features in excellent condition, the giant puzzle resulting from the collapse of the frame makes it hard to understand their original architecture. During the ArcticCHAR project, we excavated a house at Kuukpak (Northwest Territories, Canada) in 2014 and 2016. Facing the complexity of this feature,...
Building a New Ontology for Historical Archaeology Using the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (2016)
Unlike prehistoric archaeology, there is no general unified system by which historical archaeological sites are classified. This problem, which is in part due to recognized biases in the recording of historic archaeological sites, has resulted in numerous incompatible systems by which various states classify historic sites. This study demonstrates a first step toward providing historical archaeologists with the means of creating a more cohesive ontology for historic site reporting. The advent of...
Building a Virtual Bridge Connecting Indian Himalayan Archaeology with a Virginia University and the World (2017)
The Virtual Curation Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia, and the Archaeology Department of Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna (HNB) Garhwal University, in Garhwal (Srinagar), India, have partnered to create three-dimensional (3D) models of artifacts and sculptures from the trans-Himalayan region of northern India. Many of these items are on display in the HNB Garhwal University Museum of Himalayan Archaeology and Ethnography. This partnership seeks to preserve these...
Building Capacity and Communities of Practice in Digital Heritage and Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As digital methods have become ubiquitous and critical in archaeology and heritage, the challenge of teaching those methods has become more complex. More importantly, we’re being faced with an equally important challenge - how do we build and foster communities in which scholars are connected through...
Building Collapse: Hierarchy and an Anarchic Social Movement in the Hohokam Classic Period (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have offered multiple explanations for the dramatic architectural, subsistence, and political shifts that happened at the end of the Hohokam Classic period. Many of these explanations are good at exploring potential factors leading to these changes in regional contexts, like the Phoenix Basin where it...