Digital and Poly-sensing Archaeology: From Remote Sensing to Smart Trowels

Summary

Duke University started in 2014 a multidisciplinary archaeological research project involving the use of advanced digital technologies and focused on the Etruscan and Roman site of Vulci (Italy). Vulci, (10th–3rd c. BCE), in the Province of Viterbo, Italy, was one of the largest and most important cities of ancient Etruria and one of the biggest cities in the 1st millennium BCE in the Italian peninsula. The project integrates the use of multispectral cameras by drones/UAV, georadar, digital photogrammetry, image modeling, and laser scanning. GIS, Web-GIS, and online repositories guarantee the integration and standardization of all of the data. In this domain, Duke is developing a specific Web-GIS platform in Geonode for the integration and sharing of spatial and georeferenced archaeological data. New digital tools, such as special trowels (names "smart trowels") with multiples sensors are experimented during the archaeological excavations. The main goal is to collect geometric data but also additional information concerning the features and components of the soil. High-resolution sensors coupled with novel photogrammetry processing techniques allow for the reconstruction of landscapes in three dimensions and for virtual reality applications such as the DIVE (Duke Immersive Virtual Environment).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20537