Hasil untuk "Prehistoric archaeology"

Yin Wu, Gangjian Zhang, Jiayu Chen et al.

Understanding humanity's earliest writing systems is crucial for reconstructing civilization's origins, yet many ancient scripts remain undeciphered. Oracle Bone Script (OBS) from China's Shang dynasty exemplifies this challenge: only approximately 1,500 of roughly 4,600 characters have been decoded, and a substantial portion of these 3,000-year-old inscriptions remains only partially understood. Limited by extreme data scarcity, existing computational methods achieve under 3% accuracy on unseen characters -- the core palaeographic challenge. We overcome this by reframing decipherment from classification to dictionary-based retrieval. Using deep learning guided by character evolution principles, we generate a comprehensive synthetic dictionary of plausible OBS variants for modern Chinese characters. Scholars query unknown inscriptions to retrieve visually similar candidates with transparent evidence, replacing algorithmic black boxes with interpretable hypotheses. Our approach achieves 54.3% Top-10 and 86.6% Top-50 accuracy for unseen characters. This scalable, transparent framework accelerates decipherment of a pivotal undeciphered script and establishes a generalizable methodology for AI-assisted archaeological discovery.

Sara Ghaboura, Ketan More, Ritesh Thawkar et al.

Understanding historical and cultural artifacts demands human expertise and advanced computational techniques, yet the process remains complex and time-intensive. While large multimodal models offer promising support, their evaluation and improvement require a standardized benchmark. To address this, we introduce TimeTravel, a benchmark of 10,250 expert-verified samples spanning 266 distinct cultures across 10 major historical regions. Designed for AI-driven analysis of manuscripts, artworks, inscriptions, and archaeological discoveries, TimeTravel provides a structured dataset and robust evaluation framework to assess AI models' capabilities in classification, interpretation, and historical comprehension. By integrating AI with historical research, TimeTravel fosters AI-powered tools for historians, archaeologists, researchers, and cultural tourists to extract valuable insights while ensuring technology contributes meaningfully to historical discovery and cultural heritage preservation. We evaluate contemporary AI models on TimeTravel, highlighting their strengths and identifying areas for improvement. Our goal is to establish AI as a reliable partner in preserving cultural heritage, ensuring that technological advancements contribute meaningfully to historical discovery. Our code is available at: \url{https://github.com/mbzuai-oryx/TimeTravel}.

Jose Marco Arias, Eric F. Bell, Katya Gozman et al.

We present the discovery of Andromeda XXXV, the faintest Andromeda satellite galaxy discovered to date, identified as an overdensity of stars in the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey and confirmed via Hubble Space Telescope imaging. Located at a heliocentric distance of $927^{+76}_{-63}$ kpc and $158^{+57}_{-45}$ kpc from Andromeda, Andromeda XXXV is an extended ($r_h = 53\,^{+13}_{-11}$ pc), elliptical ($ε= 0.4\, \pm 0.2$), metal-poor ($[\text{Fe}/\text{H}]\sim-1.9$) system, and the least luminous ($M_V=-5.2 \pm 0.3$) of Andromeda's dwarf satellites discovered so far. Andromeda XXXV's properties are consistent with the known population of dwarf galaxies around the Local Group, bearing close structural resemblance to the Canes Venatici II and Hydra II Milky Way (MW) dwarf satellite galaxies. Its stellar population, characterized by a red horizontal branch or a red clump feature, mirrors that of other Andromeda satellite galaxies in showing evidence for a spread in age and metallicity, with no signs of younger stellar generations. This age-metallicity spread is not observed in MW satellites of comparable stellar mass, and highlights the persistent differences between the satellite systems of Andromeda and the MW, extending even into the ultrafaint regime.

Mara Beatriz Agosto

This article examines the concept of landscape in processual archaeology and its conceptual tools, with a focus on the Anglo-Saxon world. In this approach, «landscape» is equated with the ecological «environment,» informed by American ecological anthropology and systems theory. Cultures are viewed as adaptive subsystems in equilibrium with natural systems, where environmental changes prompt sociocultural responses. Butzer’s framework analyses micro-, meso-, and macro-environmental scales using techniques like photointerpretation and paleoenvironmental reconstruction. The landscape is seen as dynamic, shaped by human activity, supporting explanations for demographic patterns and the rise and fall of civilisations like Egypt and Axum. Quantitative tools, such as Willey’s settlement-pattern analysis and Christaller’s central-place theory, help identify behavioural patterns and resource distribution. This functionalist approach overlooks symbolic aspects of the landscape.

Taichi Kuronuma, Takehiro Miki, Kantaro Tanabe et al.

The lowland oases and highland plateaus of Southeast Arabia have been occupied since ancient times due to the availability of groundwater resulting from abundant precipitation in the mountains. By contrast, the land use of intermediate narrow canyons as pathways to transport between oases and mountains has not been fully understood, and thus the holistic understanding of how people have used and adapted to arid land still remains to be pursued. To examine land use and its transformation, we have investigated Tanuf Canyon in the Al-Hajar Mountains in North-Central Oman since 2017. We documented 21 archaeological sites that indicate variegated land use related to mobility. The land is used most often for mortuary purposes. However, non-mortuary activities such as occupation, rock art panels, nomadic pastoral activities, and fortifications were also detected. Moreover, we confirmed the changes and continuities in the terrain that serve specific purposes. The location of the cemeteries has shifted periodically, indicating the transformation of cultural needs derived from mortuary customs. The emergence of fortification in the Islamic period reflects a new method of land control, accompanied by increased needs for defensive purposes. However, the locations of cave occupation and rock art generally remained unchanged because of the continuing needs to provide natural shelters or panels for pecking. The canyon has always constrained land availability since the Early Holocene, and the mode of land selection and occupation depend on a combination of cultural and practical factors.

Lena Slabon, Sarah Bäumler, Elena Appel et al.

The ancient site of Olympia is located on the northern fringe of the Basin of Makrisia at the confluence of the Kladeos and Alpheios rivers (western Peloponnese, Greece) and was used as a venue for the Panhellenic Games from Archaic times until the 4th century AD. Geophysical prospection (frequency domain electromagnetic induction and electrical resistivity tomography) was carried out as a basis for detailed geoarchaeological investigations. In doing so, we identified a previously unknown building structure adjacent to the Altis, the inner part of the sanctuary at Olympia. Situated south of the Southwest Thermae, this structure measures at least 100 m (WSW-ENE) by 80 m (NNW-SSE). Its external orientation is in line with the orientation of the Southwest Thermae and the Leonidaion. We retrieved sediment cores from 17 different locations in combination with high-resolution direct push sensing from inside the newly found structure. All cores revealed distinct units of organic-rich limnic sediments dominated by clay and fine silt. Geochemical and micropaleontological analyses of selected sediment samples indicate highly eutrophic conditions, as evidenced by elevated phosphorous concentrations and the dominance of the ostracod species <i>Cyprideis torosa</i>, which is able to live under low-oxygen conditions. Moreover, molecular biomarker analyses show a significant input of lipid fecal markers, implying strong anthropogenic pollution. Further, the limnic sediments include numerous charcoal remains and abundant diagnostic artifacts such as ceramic fragments and building material. Radiocarbon dating documents that these limnic conditions persisted within the building structure from at least the 5th century BC to the 6th century AD. The identified building structure lies in the immediate proximity to the Lake of Olympia, which was recently found to have existed from the mid-Holocene to the Medieval period. Its characteristic filling with fine-grained sediments and multiple indications for a strongly polluted and heavily used standing water environment let us hypothesize that it was possibly used as a harbor installation. A harbor at ancient Olympia could have been used to reach the sanctuary by boat and to transport goods of all kinds.

Sinem Türkteki

The meanings attributed to the hand motif, which has been used as a symbol since prehistoric times, are extremely diverse. This diversity is likely due to the importance of the hand as a limb in the human body. The sensitivity of the f ingertips laid the groundwork for the active use of the hand, enabling humans to invent tools and facilitating both cultural and technological advancements in settlements. The hand motif/stencil, which first appeared in parietal art, can also be observed on pottery in subsequent periods. The motif discussed in this article belongs to a four fingered hand depicted on a pithos unearthed in the Early Bronze Age I Cemetery at Küllüoba Höyük. The fact that the hand on the pithos has four fingers, that the pithos was used as a burial container, and that the remains of a child’s burial were found inside elevates this motif beyond mere decoration, making it open to various interpretations. In the article, it is argued, based on the example from Küllüoba and compared with similar examples from Gargas Cave, that a deliberate amputation might have been performed. The pithos, with its motif, the findings inside, and its context, forms a unique combination and, for now, represents the earliest known example in the field of archaeology in terms of both its archaeological significance and the meanings attributed to it.

Theodore Tsesmelis, Luca Palmieri, Marina Khoroshiltseva et al.

This paper proposes the RePAIR dataset that represents a challenging benchmark to test modern computational and data driven methods for puzzle-solving and reassembly tasks. Our dataset has unique properties that are uncommon to current benchmarks for 2D and 3D puzzle solving. The fragments and fractures are realistic, caused by a collapse of a fresco during a World War II bombing at the Pompeii archaeological park. The fragments are also eroded and have missing pieces with irregular shapes and different dimensions, challenging further the reassembly algorithms. The dataset is multi-modal providing high resolution images with characteristic pictorial elements, detailed 3D scans of the fragments and meta-data annotated by the archaeologists. Ground truth has been generated through several years of unceasing fieldwork, including the excavation and cleaning of each fragment, followed by manual puzzle solving by archaeologists of a subset of approx. 1000 pieces among the 16000 available. After digitizing all the fragments in 3D, a benchmark was prepared to challenge current reassembly and puzzle-solving methods that often solve more simplistic synthetic scenarios. The tested baselines show that there clearly exists a gap to fill in solving this computationally complex problem.

Ciera McFarland, Ankush Dhawan, Riya Kumari et al.

Soft, growing vine robots are well-suited for exploring cluttered, unknown environments, and are theorized to be performant during structural collapse incidents caused by earthquakes, fires, explosions, and material flaws. These vine robots grow from the tip, enabling them to navigate rubble-filled passageways easily. State-of-the-art vine robots have been tested in archaeological and other field settings, but their translational capabilities to urban search and rescue (USAR) are not well understood. To this end, we present a set of experiments designed to test the limits of a vine robot system, the Soft Pathfinding Robotic Observation Unit (SPROUT), operating in an engineered collapsed structure. Our testing is driven by a taxonomy of difficulty derived from the challenges USAR crews face navigating void spaces and their associated hazards. Initial experiments explore the viability of the vine robot form factor, both ideal and implemented, as well as the control and sensorization of the system. A secondary set of experiments applies domain-specific design improvements to increase the portability and reliability of the system. SPROUT can grow through tight apertures, around corners, and into void spaces, but requires additional development in sensorization to improve control and situational awareness.

Berat Kurar-Barakat, Nachum Dershowitz

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls over 60 years ago is widely regarded as one of the greatest archaeological breakthroughs in modern history. Recent study of the scrolls presents ongoing computational challenges, including determining the provenance of fragments, clustering fragments based on their degree of similarity, and pairing fragments that originate from the same manuscript -- all tasks that require focusing on individual letter and fragment shapes. This paper presents a computational method for segmenting ink and parchment regions in multispectral images of Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Using the newly developed Qumran Segmentation Dataset (QSD) consisting of 20 fragments, we apply multispectral thresholding to isolate ink and parchment regions based on their unique spectral signatures. To refine segmentation accuracy, we introduce an energy minimization technique that leverages ink contours, which are more distinguishable from the background and less noisy than inner ink regions. Experimental results demonstrate that this Multispectral Thresholding and Energy Minimization (MTEM) method achieves significant improvements over traditional binarization approaches like Otsu and Sauvola in parchment segmentation and is successful at delineating ink borders, in distinction from holes and background regions.

Lifei Ye, Shaolan Bi, Jinghua Zhang et al.

The empirical relations between rotation period, chromospheric activity, and age can be used to estimate stellar age. To calibrate these relations, we present a catalog, including the masses and ages of 52,321 FGK dwarfs, 47,489 chromospheric activity index $logR^{+}_{HK}$, 6,077 rotation period $P_{rot}$ and variability amplitude $S_{ph}$, based on data from LAMOST DR7, Kepler and Gaia DR3. We find a pronounced correlation among $P_{rot}$, age, and [Fe/H] throughout the main-sequence phase for F dwarfs. However, the decrease of $logR^{+}_{HK}$ over time is not significant except for those with [Fe/H] $<$ $-$0.1. For G dwarfs, both $P_{rot}$ and $logR^{+}_{HK}$ are reliable age probes in the ranges $\sim$ 2-11 Gyr and $\sim$ 2-13 Gyr, respectively. K dwarfs exhibit a prominent decrease in $logR^{+}_{HK}$ within the age range of $\sim$ 3-13 Gyr when the relation of $P_{rot}-τ$ is invalid. These relations are very important for promptly estimating the age of a vast number of stars, thus serving as a powerful tool in advancing the fields of exoplanet properties, stellar evolution, and Galactic-archaeology.

Andrea Sante, Andreea S. Font, Sandra Ortega-Martorell et al.

We present several machine learning (ML) models developed to efficiently separate stars formed in-situ in Milky Way-type galaxies from those that were formed externally and later accreted. These models, which include examples from artificial neural networks, decision trees and dimensionality reduction techniques, are trained on a sample of disc-like, Milky Way-mass galaxies drawn from the ARTEMIS cosmological hydrodynamical zoom-in simulations. We find that the input parameters which provide an optimal performance for these models consist of a combination of stellar positions, kinematics, chemical abundances ([Fe/H] and [$α$/Fe]) and photometric properties. Models from all categories perform similarly well, with area under the precision-recall curve (PR-AUC) scores of $\simeq 0.6$. Beyond a galactocentric radius of $5$~kpc, models retrieve $>90\%$ of accreted stars, with a sample purity close to $60\%$, however the purity can be increased by adjusting the classification threshold. For one model, we also include host galaxy-specific properties in the training, to account for the variability of accretion histories of the hosts, however this does not lead to an improvement in performance. The ML models can identify accreted stars even in regions heavily dominated by the in-situ component (e.g., in the disc), and perform well on an unseen suite of simulations (the Auriga simulations). The general applicability bodes well for application of such methods on observational data to identify accreted substructures in the Milky Way without the need to resort to selection cuts for minimising the contamination from in-situ stars.

Khurram Saleem, Ulrich Schürmann, Lena Grandin et al.

Here we report on the analysis of a metallic Late Neolithic copper axe by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The axe was found at Eskilstorp, south-west Scania during archaeological excavations in autumn of 2015. It showed a hint of silver en-richment on the surface which is unusual for Late Neolithic axes from Pile type hoard. To identify the origin of the silver content, we extracted a thin lamella of the axe interior using Focused Ion Beam (FIB) technology to reach the internal structure to keep the process extremely minimally invasive. The results revealed the presence of porous external layer of copper oxide enriched with silver particles. It is shown with the corrosion test performed on copper-silver experimental replica that the silver en-richment is attributed to the selective dissolution of copper metal as a resut of corrosion process on the axe. The corrosion experiment is performed in the presence of an organic electrolyte such as Hemic Acid (HA) which replicates soil and natural water environment. In the scope of this research work, we found a strong evidence that the silver on the surface of the axe was not decrative layer and instead remained on the surface due to its more noble character while copper leached out into the soil due to corrosion.

Wouter B. Verschoof‐van der Vaart, K. Lambers

Computer-aided methods for the automatic detection of archaeological objects are needed to cope with the ever-growing set of largely digital and easily available remotely sensed data. In this paper, a promising new technique for the automated detection of multiple classes of archaeological objects in LiDAR data is presented. This technique is based on R-CNNs (Regions-based Convolutional Neural Networks). Unlike normal CNNs, which classify the entire input image, R-CNNs address the problem of object detection, which requires correctly localising and classifying (multiple) objects within a larger image. We have incorporated this technique into a workflow, which enables the preprocessing of LiDAR data into the required data format and the conversion of the results of the object detection into geographical data, usable in a GIS environment. The proposed technique has been trained and tested on LiDAR data gathered from the central part of the Netherlands. This area contains a multitude of archaeological objects, including prehistoric barrows and Celtic fields. The initial experiments show that we are able to automatically detect and categorise these two types of archaeological objects and thus proof the added value of this technique.

Dragi Kocev, Nikola Simidjievski, Ana Kostovska et al.

The volume contains selected contributions from the Machine Learning Challenge "Discover the Mysteries of the Maya", presented at the Discovery Challenge Track of The European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML PKDD 2021). Remote sensing has greatly accelerated traditional archaeological landscape surveys in the forested regions of the ancient Maya. Typical exploration and discovery attempts, beside focusing on whole ancient cities, focus also on individual buildings and structures. Recently, there have been several successful attempts of utilizing machine learning for identifying ancient Maya settlements. These attempts, while relevant, focus on narrow areas and rely on high-quality aerial laser scanning (ALS) data which covers only a fraction of the region where ancient Maya were once settled. Satellite image data, on the other hand, produced by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel missions, is abundant and, more importantly, publicly available. The "Discover the Mysteries of the Maya" challenge aimed at locating and identifying ancient Maya architectures (buildings, aguadas, and platforms) by performing integrated image segmentation of different types of satellite imagery (from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2) data and ALS (lidar) data.

Alejandro Gangui

The Jesuit missions in South America were an important and unique advance in Christian evangelisation on the continent until the expulsion of the Order in 1767. Although the history and cultural aspects of these missions and their most iconic buildings have been extensively studied, the archaeoastronomy of the Guaraní peoples of the Province of Paraquaria (Province of Paraguay) has only been recently considered, with the existing studies focusing primarily on the orientation of their churches. The paper presented here, which is the first archaeoastronomical study of the Jesuit missions of Chiquitos in eastern Bolivia, is an attempt to continue and complement the previous archaeoastronomical studies of the region. The methodologies employed involved the analysis of the Jesuit churches that currently exist in this region, namely, the on-site measurements of the orientations of eight churches currently standing and the ruins of a ninth church of which only a free-standing bell tower and parts of the side walls remain preserved. The orientation measurements of a tenth church, which we were unable to visit, were determined via the use of satellite maps. The landscape surrounding these churches was then examined in detail and furthermore, a detailed cultural and historical study of the characteristics of the villages where the churches are located was carried out. Our results show that, unlike the churches of the Province of Paraquaria where meridian orientations in the north-south direction stand out, half of the studied churches have shown potential canonical orientations that seem to be aligned to solar phenomena, with three exhibiting precise equinoctial orientation. We propose reasons for these orientations, including the possible relevance of illumination effects on significant internal elements within the churches - effects that were generally sought in Baroque church architecture.

R. Blumenschine, M. M. Selvaggio

L. Pattavina, N. Ferreiro Iachellini, L. Pagnanini et al.

RES-NOVA is a new proposed experiment for the investigation of astrophysical neutrino sources with archaeological Pb-based cryogenic detectors. RES-NOVA will exploit Coherent Elastic neutrino-Nucleus Scattering (CE$ν$NS) as detection channel, thus it will be equally sensitive to all neutrino flavors produced by Supernovae (SNe). RES-NOVA with only a total active volume of (60 cm)$^3$ and an energy threshold of 1 keV will probe the entire Milky Way Galaxy for (failed) core-collapse SNe with $> 3 σ$ detection significance. The high detector modularity makes RES-NOVA ideal also for reconstructing the main parameters (e.g. average neutrino energy, star binding energy) of SNe occurring in our vicinity, without deterioration of the detector performance caused by the high neutrino interaction rate. For the first time, distances $<3$ kpc can be surveyed, similarly to the ones where all known past galactic SNe happened. We discuss the RES-NOVA potential, accounting for a realistic setup, considering the detector geometry, modularity and background level in the region of interest. We report on the RES-NOVA background model and on the sensitivity to SN neutrinos as a function of the distance travelled by neutrinos.

Georg Zotti, Susanne M Hoffmann, Alexander Wolf et al.

For centuries, the rich nocturnal environment of the starry sky could be modelled only by analogue tools such as paper planispheres, atlases, globes and numerical tables. The immersive sky simulator of the twentieth century, the optomechanical planetarium, provided new ways for representing and teaching about the sky, but the high construction and running costs meant that they have not become common. However, in recent decades, "desktop planetarium programs" running on personal computers have gained wide attention. Modern incarnations are immensely versatile tools, mostly targeted towards the community of amateur astronomers and for knowledge transfer in transdisciplinary research. Cultural astronomers also value the possibilities they give of simulating the skies of past times or other cultures. With this paper, we provide an extended presentation of the open-source project Stellarium, which in the last few years has been enriched with capabilities for cultural astronomy research not found in similar, commercial alternatives.

Aleksandar Palavestra, Monika Milosavljević

Miloje M. Vasić (1869–1956) is considered to be the founding father of Serbian archaeology. This paper directly challenges, as based on detailed archival research, the prevailing view that his excavation of the Vinča archaeological site is a model standard for Serbian archaeology. Instead, Vasić’s handling of the excavation was selective, non-systematic and destructive when viewed today from the perspective of modern practices. Vasić originally gained authority based on the discovery of Vinča, a prehistoric archaeological site that contains layers from the Neolithic to the middle ages. In his zeal to uncover “prehistory”, he deliberately ignored the other archaeological layers present. The most significant example of neglected archaeological remains is his excavations of Vinča’s medieval cemetery where he did not document observations systematically. This prioritization of the importance of one archaeological period over another was reflected in the further development of archaeology in Serbia, so that medieval archaeology was treated as marginal and second-rate compared to others. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to contextualize Vasić’s approach through the methods used in the history of archaeology. The key research question thereof is how Miloje M. Vasić failed to document the burials at the Vinča site, which is the consequent reason why there is little to no documented evidence of them. The theoretical and methodological basis of the analysis is based on the approach of Gavin Lucas who views the creation of the primary field documentation as testimony. Lucas notes that the debate concerning knowledge production had drifted from merely an epistemological issue to a phenomenon centered around archaeological practice. Here the key questions have come to concern the social and material setting of knowledge production and not the objective coherence of the argument. Burials that were noted in Vasić’s documentation are categorized into four groups: 1) unwanted or medieval burials; 2) incidental burials originating from prehistory 3) an “ossuary” from Vinča containing nine skeletons and 4) imagined multiple cremations based on one found cremation. Therefore, even while documenting several “lateral” prehistoric graves, he entirely omitted any thorough documentation of the medieval cemetery, considering them of less import. If there is any lesson that may be learned from this journey through the history of archaeological practice, it is that archaeological documentation as a form of testimony should be done ethically, adequately and responsibly. It should not be done according to the practices of the “bad science” of its founding-fathers.