Deepdive: Using AI and Virtual Reality to Explore Ancient Submerged Civilizations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology is a subdiscipline of archaeology that deals with the discovery of ancient submerged landscapes. In Europe alone over 3,000 submerged ancient sites are recorded. While there is an increased number of submerged sites in North America, the emphasis has on the study of shipwrecks and historical questions related to nautical issues. As a result, underwater archaeology has not contributed much to anthropological theory there, especially when it comes to broader theoretical issues. The goal of this study is to use artificial intelligence techniques, machine learning, and virtual reality to re-create an ancient submerged landscape. This landscape is then used as a vehicle for archaeologists to test theories and validate hypotheses about ancient civilizations. Ultimately, the goal is to predict the location of new underwater sites that can be examined archaeologically. The specific project, the Alpena-Amberly Land Bridge Project, is located in Lake Huron, one the Great Lakes in North America.

Cite this Record

Deepdive: Using AI and Virtual Reality to Explore Ancient Submerged Civilizations. Robert Reynolds, Thomas Palazzolo, Ashley Lemke, John O'Shea, Sarah Saad. Presented at The 86th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2021 ( tDAR id: 467813)

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Spatial Coverage

min long: -103.975; min lat: 36.598 ; max long: -80.42; max lat: 48.922 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33601