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Blog, Page 4

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 →

#CAAPerth Day Three

I am jumping between sessions today. <live blog> 10:46 Off to chair session S30 - Computational approaches towards artefacts studies (on behalf of Eleni Kotoula). Session starting at 11:00. 10:45 Examining spatial relationships along the street front. 10:42 Explored overlapping isovists to explore movement around the city, and visual overlaps in order to create visibility connections. Continue reading →

#CAAPerth Day Two – S1 – 3D recording, data capture and visualisation technologies for Rock Art

Chair(s): Geoff Avern, Jo McDonald Discussant(s): Geoff Avern, Jo McDonald Format: Long Paper Presentation with Roundtable Schedule: Tuesday 26th 10:30 - 15:00 Room: Auditorium Venue: University of Western Australia Club Details from: http://caa2013.org/drupal/sessions <live blog below> 12:35 Finished for lunch. 12:30 Q&A: noting that more data is not necessarily a good thing. You can end up with problems due to multiple errors. Continue reading →

#CAAPerth Day Two – opening and first keynote

Day two at @CAAPerth started with an introduction to the conference by Gary Lock. He thanked in particular Arianna Traviglia who brought this week's events to fruition. Thanks Arianna! Gary noted that c. 250 had made it to CAA this year - the 41st year CAA has run - with at least 100 from Australia, representing another increase in CAA#s audience. Gary also noted the Nick Ryan bursary which is for current students. It will be voted on electronically and announced a month after the conference. Continue reading →

#CAAPerth – ACRG involvement

Members of the ACRG are out in force at this year's Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) conference at the University of Western Australia, Perth. Today there were workshops on complex systems simulation and reflectance transformation imaging organised by Tom Brughmans and Iza Romanowska, and by James Miles and Hembo Pagi. Continue reading →

Late Bronze Age Stelae, Craftspeople and Digital Technologies: Some Recent Explorations

Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) is revealing itself as a very powerful tool to examine prehistoric rock art. Through the application of different filters and the manipulation of the incidence of light, RTI provides an enhanced visual experience of the micro-topography of engraved stones, enabling the detection of subtle details that are difficult, at times impossible, to be seen through other recording techniques. Continue reading →

Digitally Recording A 3rd Century BC Underwater Battlefield

One of the most exciting archaeological discoveries of the last decade has been an ancient naval battlefield off the Egadi Islands in Italy. Located in over 100 metres depth and requiring robots to survey and record the artefacts, the site dates to the decisive climax of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage in 241 BC. Previously, only two waterline warship rams had ever been discovered, but ten have been found at the battle site together with thousands of other artefacts. Continue reading →

RTI at the Urban Variation Conference, Gothenburg

Last week Gareth and I travelled to Gothenburg in Sweden to present at the Urban Variation conference.  The conference website is here: http://conference.earlymoderntown.com/urban-variation/.  The conference was organised by the Early Modern Town Project team (find the University of Gothenburg project website, here; http://www.earlymoderntown.com/) and was attended by a multidisciplinary crowd of academics and professionals. Continue reading →