This thesis employs a hybrid CNN-Transformer architecture, alongside a detailed anthropological framework, to investigate potential historical connections between the visual morphology of the Indus Valley script and pictographic systems of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor. Through an ensemble methodology of three target scripts across 15 independently trained models, we demonstrate that Tibetan-Yi Corridor scripts exhibit approximately six-fold higher visual similarity to the Indus script (0.635) than to the Bronze Age Proto-Cuneiform (0.102) or Proto-Elamite (0.078). Contrary to expectations, when measured through direct script-to-script embedding comparisons, the Indus script maps closer to Tibetan-Yi Corridor scripts with a mean cosine similarity of 0.930 (CI: [0.917, 0.942]) than to contemporaneous West Asian signaries, which recorded mean similarities of 0.887 (CI: [0.863, 0.911]) and 0.855 (CI: [0.818, 0.891]). Across dimensionality reduction and clustering methods, the Indus script consistently clusters closest to Tibetan-Yi Corridor scripts. These computational findings align with observed pictorial parallels in numeral systems, gender markers, and iconographic elements. Archaeological evidence of contact networks along the ancient Shu-Shendu road, coinciding with the Indus Civilization's decline, provides a plausible transmission pathway. While alternate explanations cannot be ruled out, the specificity and consistency of similarities suggest more complex cultural transmission networks between South and East Asia than previously recognized.
Wilhelm Kerle-Malcharek, Niklas Hann-von-Weyhern, Ulf Hailer
et al.
Virtual archaeology has significantly evolved over the last few decades through advancements in data acquisition and representation; for example, by improved data recording technologies and virtual reality devices. Immersive environments provide novel ways to present historical events or objects with high visual quality for both the general public and researchers. Here, we examine how the emerging field of immersive analytics can contribute to enhancing the understanding and exploration of archaeological data, and we explore the junction of virtual archaeology and immersive analytics. We discuss a selection of features already used by the community and examine how optimizing these can facilitate the discourse on cultural heritage objects. As a basis for discussion, we introduce and utilize three digital reconstruction interpretations of the mausoleum of the late Roman Emperor Maxentius in Rome, which are based on prior scientific work and a typological framework. Based on our work, we advocate for the value of combining historical and computer science expertise to optimize immersive environments for virtual reconstructions, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding and interactive exploration of archaeological data.
Comprehension of ancient texts plays an important role in archaeology and understanding of Chinese history and civilization. The rapid development of large language models needs benchmarks that can evaluate their comprehension of ancient characters. Existing Chinese benchmarks are mostly targeted at modern Chinese and transmitted documents in ancient Chinese, but the part of excavated documents in ancient Chinese is not covered. To meet this need, we propose the AncientBench, which aims to evaluate the comprehension of ancient characters, especially in the scenario of excavated documents. The AncientBench is divided into four dimensions, which correspond to the four competencies of ancient character comprehension: glyph comprehension, pronunciation comprehension, meaning comprehension, and contextual comprehension. The benchmark also contains ten tasks, including radical, phonetic radical, homophone, cloze, translation, and more, providing a comprehensive framework for evaluation. We convened archaeological researchers to conduct experimental evaluations, proposed an ancient model as baseline, and conducted extensive experiments on the currently best-performing large language models. The experimental results reveal the great potential of large language models in ancient textual scenarios as well as the gap with humans. Our research aims to promote the development and application of large language models in the field of archaeology and ancient Chinese language.
Amanda Sengeløv, Giacomo Capuzzo, Sarah Dalle
et al.
Understanding the spatial distribution of strontium isotopes in plants or other archives within a region is crucial for various fields, including archaeology, environmental studies, food sciences and forensic science. This study aims to create a detailed dynamic strontium isoscape for Belgium through high-density plant sampling, presented in a web application (IsoBel) that serves the mentioned research fields. A total of 540 plant samples (199 locations), representing various species of grass, shrubs, and trees across Belgium were collected and were analysed for their strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) to create a first biologically available strontium map. Sampling sites were selected to cover diverse lithological formations and soil types, ensuring representative coverage of the region’s geological heterogeneity, by using a novel high density grid mapping method. Sixty-four previously published plants from 21 locations are also included in this study, bringing the total amount of plant samples used to 604 from 220 locations. The results reveal significant variations in 87Sr/86Sr across Belgium (ranging from 0.7054 to 0.7259), which reflect the underlying lithology and geological processes (tectonics, weathering,…) which shaped the landscape. Although overlapping 87Sr/86Sr is seen across the majority of lithologies, there is a statistically significant difference between the distribution of 87Sr/86Sr values across all different lithological units in Belgium (Kruskal-Wallis test; p < 0.0001). Distinct regional patterns were observed, with higher 87Sr/86Sr in the older geological south-eastern part of Belgium, compared to the younger north-western parts. The high-density plant sampling approach employed in this study allowed for enhanced spatial resolution and improved accuracy in the predictive surfaces for bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr created by Empirical Bayesian Kriging (EBK). These findings provide valuable insights into the geographic distribution of strontium isotopes within Belgium and offer a foundation for future studies in archaeology, ecology, environmental studies, food sciences and forensics. Furthermore, the extensive coverage of various plant species provided a robust representation of the local ecosystems and their strontium sources. Overall, this study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on regional strontium isoscapes, enhancing our understanding of the complex interplay between litho- and biosphere in shaping the strontium isotope compositions of ecosystems.
Los centros episcopales hispanos que se fundaron entre el siglo IV y V se ubicaron, en la mayor parte de los casos, en núcleos de cierta relevancia urbana. La historiografía dedicada al estudio de las fundaciones posteriores, ya en periodo visigodo, ha asumido, en muchos casos de forma casi automática, su establecimiento asimismo en ciudades. Sin embargo, una nueva reinterpretación a partir de los datos arqueológicos y textuales de las sedes de Complutum, Arcavica y Valeria que presentamos en este artículo, pone en discusión este modelo y subraya la utilización, por parte del reino visigodo de Toledo, de las demarcaciones territoriales urbanas bajoimperiales como base de la organización eclesiástica, sin tener en cuenta si, como lo había hecho en el pasado, la ciudad epónima mantenía su actividad y su rol central en el territorio.
Mariana Nabais, Mariana Nabais, Mariana Nabais
et al.
This study examines the ungulate and carnivore remains recovered from the Middle Palaeolithic site of Gruta da Figueira Brava, Portugal, to assess Neanderthal subsistence strategies in the region during late Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS-5). The site, now facing the Atlantic Ocean, was located up to 2 km inland at the time of occupation, providing access to both terrestrial and coastal environments. Despite extensive fragmentation and carbonate encrustation of the faunal assemblage, zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses reveal a diversity of prey species, dominated by red deer (Cervus elaphus) and ibex (Capra pyrenaica), with lesser contributions from aurochs (Bos primigenius) and horses (Equus caballus). The skeletal element representation, along with cut marks, percussion marks and burning evidence suggest a complex and flexible approach to resource transport, processing and consumption. Neanderthals exploited both high-yield and marginal bone portions, maximising nutritional intake through cooking, defleshing and marrow extraction. The assemblage suggests that whole deer carcasses were occasionally transported to the site, while selective transport strategies were applied to larger taxa. The presence of carnivore remains, including bears (Ursus arctos), hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta), wolves (Canis lupus) and wild cats (Felis silvestris), with no evidence of human-carnivore interactions, suggests intermittent use of the cave by non-human predators during periods of human absence (e.g., for cat denning and bear hibernation or as a hyaena latrine).
Archaeogaming and queer games studies have both grown as paradigms in the last decade. The former broadly refers to the archaeological study of games, while the later concerns the application of queer theory to the medium. To date, there has been limited engagement of archaeogamers with queer games scholarship, and vice versa. This article argues that there are epistomological parallels between the two; as they are both concerned with the limits and ethics of representation, the personal and political contexts of game development and engagement with video games through transgressive play. The paper is structured around an extended literature review and three vignettes that reflect on the author's personal experience of conducting archaeogaming research, an ethnographic study of Wurm Online, an archaeological survey of Elden Ring and a player study of the generative archaeology game Nothing Beside Remains. While archaeogaming can learn from the centring of subjective lived experience and labour in the queer games sphere, archaeogaming as a form of game preservation can also benefit queer games studies.
The public release of ChatGPT has resulted in considerable publicity and has led to wide-spread discussion of the usefulness and capabilities of generative AI language models. Its ability to extract and summarise data from textual sources and present them as human-like contextual responses makes it an eminently suitable tool to answer questions users might ask. This paper tested what archaeological literature appears to have been included in ChatGPT's training phase. While ChatGPT offered seemingly pertinent references, a large percentage proved to be fictitious. Using cloze analysis to make inferences on the sources 'memorised' by a generative AI model, this paper was unable to prove that ChatGPT had access to the full texts of the genuine references. It can be shown that all references provided by ChatGPT that were found to be genuine have also been cited on Wikipedia pages. This strongly indicates that the source base for at least some of the data is found in those pages. The implications of this in relation to data quality are discussed.
The Galactic dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) provide valuable insight into dark matter (DM) properties and its role in galaxy formation. Their close proximity enables the measurement of line-of-sight velocities for resolved stars, which allows us to study DM halo structure. However, uncertainties in DM mass profile determination persist due to the degeneracy between DM mass density and velocity dispersion tensor anisotropy. Overcoming this requires large kinematic samples and identification of foreground contamination. With 1.25 deg$^2$ and 2394 fibers, PFS plus pre-imaging with Hyper Suprime Cam will make significant progress in this undertaking.
The paper concerns clustering with respect to the shape and size of 2D contours that are boundaries of cross-sections of 3D objects of revolution. We propose a number of similarity measures based on combined disparate Procrustes analysis (PA) and Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distances. Motivation and the main application for this study comes from archaeology. The performed computational experiments refer to the clustering of archaeological pottery.
Gleb Zilberstein, Roman Zilberstein, Svetlana Zilberstein
et al.
In the present report, we offer a novel way for studying (via optical and digital means) features in Renaissance and Leonardo’s (and of course any other painter who followed this canon) paintings, based on a software that separately recognizes white, red, green, blue colors and measures the intensity of single bright spots in canvasses. After mapping the distribution of individual colors, the software proposes a trajectory considering the different geometrical and topological aspects. What we propose here is not just a variant of known methods for discovering the color distribution in a painting; on the contrary, it represents a new way to find unknown parameters in any Renaissance painting. In addition, via multispectral and hyperspectral analyses and image processing, the developed software permitted us to monitor the decay of some pigments in these canvasses at macro- and microscopic levels.
Karst-derived breccia is the most analysed deposit in fossil-bearing Southeast Asian caves due to its superior preservation potential for human, faunal, archaeological, and palaeontological data. The study of breccia can provide a better understanding of human and faunal histories, and an opportunity to investigate site taphonomy and insights into environments of deposition and post-depositional processes. We review the literature on approaches used to improve the taphonomic understanding of cave deposits in Southeast Asia and how these deposits fit into a cave’s life history. We discuss common methods used to extract taphonomic data retained in Southeast Asian cave deposits and the associated opportunities to discern the mechanisms of cave formation, depositional history, and faunal accumulation. While attempts have previously been made to discern the taphonomic characteristics of Pleistocene vertebrate remains in the region, there has been no comprehensive review outlining methods used to understand taphonomic histories and the biases introduced through these processes. We illustrate the challenges of researching cave breccias in Southeast Asia and the knowledge gaps brought about by conventional methodologies. Uncertainties exist about the extent to which breccia can be examined to infer the taphonomic history of a vertebrate assemblage. These uncertainties exist in part because of dating complexities. This review demonstrates that a taphonomic analysis of breccia in complex long-term accumulations requires a multi-disciplinary approach. We recommend using digital techniques to record spatial distribution data for a thorough interpretation of taphonomic characteristics.
Our paper aims at bringing more facts to light over one of the Lower Danube forts – i.e. <em>Cius</em> (Gârliciu), by using all available data, including cartographic information, archive mentions by Pamfil Polonic, other epigraphic and numismatic elements, or aero-photogrammetric high-resolution imagery. In early 3<sup>rd</sup> century AD it was mentioned in <em>Itinerarium Antonini Augusti</em> 224.5, at a distance of 10000 steps from <em>Carsium </em>(Hârșova)<em> </em>and another 14000 steps from <em>Beroe</em> (Piatra Frecăței). Both forts identified at <em>Cius</em> are situated on Hissarlık Hill, at the end of a 1.5 km long narrow peninsula mentioned by Themistius in the 4<sup>th</sup> century AD, almost surrounded by water and wetland. In ancient times, it must have had direct contact to the river and very likely had its own port. Nobody knows anything on the earlier 2<sup>nd</sup>-3<sup>rd</sup> century <em>castellum</em> and if it stood on the same plateau or if it exploited some other vantage point in the area. On the contrary, Late Roman <em>Cius</em> (120 : 120 m) was built, as most of the fortifications along the Lower Danube frontier, in the last decades of the 3<sup>rd</sup> – early decades of the 4<sup>th</sup> century. Equipped with U-shaped towers and possibly with a splayed fan-shaped or rectangular (?) corner-tower projecting outward, the larger fortification presents typical Tetrarchic/ Constantinian characteristics, revealed by interpreting recent aerial photos. A second, smaller fort (85 : 60 m) has been identified at the end of the peninsula towards the Hasarlâc Lake. With its <em>Bauinschrift </em>dated 369 AD found somewhere in the middle of its northern side, the latter must be the one explicitly mentioned by Themistius in his <em>On the Peace</em> – 10<sup>th</sup> Oration, as being built on a personal initiative of Emperor Valens, during its Gothic war against Athanaric.