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Archaeological science and computing, Page 4

PhD Studentship at the University of Southampton

Trade and commerce in Romeā€™s hinterland in the early and middle Republican period: Material culture approaches Applications are invited for a fully funded Distance-Learning Doctoral Award at the Discipline of Archaeology, University of Southampton from October 2013. It arises out of the research collaboration between the University of Southampton and the British School at Rome that has been ongoing since 2006. Continue reading →

Charting celebrity

I have been discovering how Google NGRAM can answer all sorts of niggling questions about fame, celebrity and novelty http://books.google.com/ngrams . What it does is search the 5 million books that have been digitised between 1500 and 2000. This adds up to about 4 per cent of all the books published and a staggering 500 billion words. By any standards this is a big sample. Continue reading →

ACRG at field-school in Estonia

Ten days ago three members of ACRG visited Estonia to participate at the archaeological field-school. It was organised by Marge Konsa from University of Tartu who also spent several months in Southampton as a visiting research student. Field-school took place in Lihula, a tiny village in West Estonia. County of LƤƤnemaa is filled with great archaeology, so we could enjoy little of it as well. Continue reading →

Southampton at the SAA Annual Meeting, Honolulu 3-7 April 2013

Recently, the department of archaeology at Southampton made its debut appearance at the Society for American Archaeology annual conference. This year it was due to be held in Honolulu, Hawai’i, which promised to make it one of the best-attended meetings of its kind. Besides the well-publicizedĀ size of the SAA meetings and the high esteem in which they are held, Honolulu is a desirable travel destination for very obvious reasons. Continue reading →

Testing a Prototype 3D Structure Light Imaging System for Underwater Archaeology

Anchor Scanning While 3D imaging has become a revolution in land archaeology, it has experienced a difficult baptism underwater. Electrical equipment and water do not mix, plus many systems do not easily transfer underwater when you add currents, visibility issues, and salt into the equation. Approaches that have been attempted include acoustics, laser-based systems, and photogrammetry with each of these having varying success depending on site conditions. Continue reading →

Capturing and exploring textures in National Archive

BT 43/57/71976: Straw hat, registered on 18 September 1850; proprietor unknown Some time ago we made a visit to UK National Archive with James Miles to test RTI technology on a wide range of examples provided by the National Archive. James went back in September of 2012 for a second time to do more recording. Recently Dinah Eastop, a Curatorial Research Fellow from the National Archives has written two blog posts and presented the results of the work on their blog. Continue reading →

Hoa Hakananaiā€™a

Hoa hakananai’a photogrammetry model.Processing by James Miles / ACRGPhotos by Hembo Pagi / ACRG The ACRG’s collaborative work with Mike Pitts on Hoa Hakananaiā€™a provides a wonderful instance of how virtual model technologies and nuanced interpretation work in harmony to produce some ground-breaking results. Continue reading →

The voice of Easter Island in the British Museum

Over the past year myself, Hembo Pagi and Graeme Earl from the ACRG have been working with Mike Pitts, editor of the British Archaeology Journal, on the Hoa Hakananai’a statue at the British Museum. The work included the production of a virtual model, through photogrammetry and a series of Reflectance Transformation Images to study the petroglyphs found on the statue. Continue reading →

#CAAPerth Day Four

<Live blog> 11:38 Interesting to get statistics on usage in the field next season – can get at issues then of serendipitous discovery perhaps. Also discussion of potential impact (good and bad) on evolving archaeology on the site of accessing information before it has been in some way checked or otherwise curated. Also is the immediacy of connection between the field and the spceialists. This relates to ongoing work on fieldwork ethnographies as part of the RCUK Patina Project. Continue reading →