Mapping archaeological landscapes through aerial thermographic imaging

This project aims to develop techniques for efficient, high-resolution aerial thermal infrared imaging of archaeological sites and surrounding landscapes. Archaeologists have been aware since the 1970s that images which record thermal wavelengths of light can reveal surface and buried archaeological features that are otherwise invisible, but the costs and difficulty of the technology has made its application beyond the reach of most scholars. This project will develop methods for collecting high-resolution thermal infrared images using a specialized camera mounted on a remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle. Conducting surveys at archaeological sites in three environmentally and culturally distinct regions--Cyprus, Dubai and South Dakota--our results will demonstrate the potential and limitations of the technology in a variety of archaeological contexts, offer guidelines for executing surveys and processing results, and serve as a blueprint for other investigators in the future

Mechanical loading of primate fingers on vertical : rock surfaces

Claire Garber Goodman Fund, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College; Stamps Scholars Program, Dartmouth Collegehttp://www.sajs.co.zahj2021Mammal Research Institut

Mechanical loading of primate fingers on vertical rock surfaces

Mechanical loading of finger bones (phalanges) can induce angular curvature, which benefits arboreal primates by dissipating forces and economising the recruitment of muscles during climbing. The recent discovery of extremely curved phalanges in a hominin, Homo naledi, is puzzling, for it suggests life in an arboreal milieu, or, alternatively, habitual climbing on vertical rock surfaces. The importance of climbing rock walls is attested by several populations of baboons, one of which uses a 7-m vertical surface to enter and exit Dronkvlei Cave, De Hoop Nature Reserve, South Africa. This rock surface is an attractive model for estimating the probability of extreme mechanical loading on the phalanges of rock-climbing primates. Here we use three-dimensional photogrammetry to show that 82–91% of the climbable surface would generate high forces on the flexor tendon pulley system and severely load the phalanges of baboons and H. naledi. If such proportions are representative of vertical rock surfaces elsewhere, it may be sufficient to induce stress-mitigating curvature in the phalanges of primates

Footprint evidence of early hominin locomotor diversity at Laetoli, Tanzania

Bipedal trackways discovered in 1978 at Laetoli site G, Tanzania and dated to 3.66 million years ago are widely accepted as the oldest unequivocal evidence of obligate bipedalism in the human lineage1-3. Another trackway discovered two years earlier at nearby site A was partially excavated and attributed to a hominin, but curious affinities with bears (ursids) marginalized its importance to the paleoanthropological community, and the location of these footprints fell into obscurity3-5. In 2019, we located, excavated and cleaned the site A trackway, producing a digital archive using 3D photogrammetry and laser scanning. Here we compare the footprints at this site with those of American black bears, chimpanzees and humans, and we show that they resemble those of hominins more than ursids. In fact, the narrow step width corroborates the original interpretation of a small, cross-stepping bipedal hominin. However, the inferred foot proportions, gait parameters and 3D morphologies of footprints at site A are readily distinguished from those at site G, indicating that a minimum of two hominin taxa with different feet and gaits coexisted at Laetoli

Institute for Digital Archaeology

This proposal seeks funding to support a program designed to provide junior scholars in archaeology with advanced training in geospatial technologies and their application to archaeological research. While geospatial technologies ranging from satellite remote sensing, to subsurface geophysical prospection, to three dimensional scanning and visualization have all become increasingly critical to modern archaeology, few practitioners have the necessary technical skills to integrate these technologies into research and teaching programs. Participants in this program will have the opportunity to spend an entire semester taking a series of intensive courses in geospatial technologies and make use of the hardware, software and instrumentation available at the University of Arkansas's Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies on independent research projects. On-campus training will be followed up by participation in one of numerous archaeological field projects