Reconstructive archaeology: in situ visualisation of previously excavated finds and features through an ongoing mixed reality process

Featured ApplicationThis automatic 3D reconstructive process currently underway supplies archaeologists with a mixed reality (MR) technique that allows them to interactively visualise 3D models representing formerly extracted finds, and to position such models over the features still present at the archaeological site.Archaeological excavation is a demolishing process. Rather few elements outlast extractive operations. Therefore, it is hard to visualise the precise location of unearthed finds at a previously excavated research area. Here, we present a mixed reality environment that displays in situ 3D models of features that were formerly extracted and recorded with 3D coordinates during unearthing operations. We created a tablet application that allows the user to view the position, orientation and dimensions of every recorded find while freely moving around the archaeological site with the device. To anchor the model, we used physical landmarks left at the excavation. A series of customised forms were created to show (onscreen) the different types of features by superimposing them over the terrain as perceived by the tablet camera. The application permits zooming-in, zooming-out, querying for specific artefacts and reading metadata associated with the archaeological elements. When at the office, our environment enables accurate visualisations of the 3D geometry concerning previously unearthed features and their spatial relationships. The application operates using the Swift programming language, Python scripts and ARKit technology. We present here an example of its use at Les Cottes, France, a palaeolithic site where thousands of artefacts are excavated out of six superimposed layers with a complex conformation.NWOVI.C.191.070Human Origin

A Comparison of Châtelperronian and Protoaurignacian Core Technology Using Data Derived from 3D Models

This study uses data extracted from 3D models to compare blade cores from the Châtelperronian and Protoaurignacian stone tool industries. These technocomplexes are at the center of the debate surrounding the interactions between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans approximately 45 to 40,000 years ago.We created 3D models of lithic cores from the sites of Roc de Combe and Les Cottés using a standardized photogrammetry protocol. We then used data derived from these 3D models to make quantitative comparisons of artifact attributes that have previously been argued to distinguish the two stone tool industries in question. These attributes include the angle between the platform and flaking surfaces, the shape of core cross sections, and the angle between core axes. The conception of this study was not to privilege the use of new technological and statistical approaches over more traditional or qualitative forms of lithic analysis. Rather, our aim was to experiment with using digital tool to develop nuanced, reproducible ways to describe variability in lithic artifacts.Our results support the hypothesis that there is a difference in the angle between core surfaces between these two industries. Our analysis also indicates a difference in the angle between core axes, although we are more cautious in interpreting these results. An elliptical Fourier analysis of core cross section shape was inconclusive. We discuss what archaeological and methodological factors may have contributed to our results, and the roles of both qualitative and quantitative observations in archaeological research. 3D artifact models generated for this study are included as supplemental data and are available for use by other researchers.Human Origin

Experiencing Ancient Human Diversity: Néandertal at the Musée de l'Homme, Paris

Heritage of Indigenous PeoplesHuman Origin

Multiple approaches to the study of bifacial technologies.

bookHuman Origin

ZooMS analysis of two Châtelperronian faunal assemblages

Human Origin

Angé (Loir-et-Cher) : un site moustérien à influences multiples

FdA – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

The acheulean handaxe : More like a bird's song than a beatles' tune?

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. KV is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. MC is supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, and Simon Fraser UniversityPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Presumed Symbolic Use of Diurnal Raptors by Neanderthals

In Africa and western Eurasia, occurrences of burials and utilized ocher fragments during the late Middle and early Late Pleistocene are often considered evidence for the emergence of symbolically-mediated behavior. Perhaps less controversial for the study of human cognitive evolution are finds of marine shell beads and complex designs on organic and mineral artifacts in early modern human (EMH) assemblages conservatively dated to ≈100–60 kilo-years (ka) ago. Here we show that, in France, Neanderthals used skeletal parts of large diurnal raptors presumably for symbolic purposes at Combe-Grenal in a layer dated to marine isotope stage (MIS) 5b (≈90 ka) and at Les Fieux in stratigraphic units dated to the early/middle phase of MIS 3 (60–40 ka). The presence of similar objects in other Middle Paleolithic contexts in France and Italy suggest that raptors were used as means of symbolic expression by Neanderthals in these regions

Neandertal and Denisovan DNA from Pleistocene sediments.

Although a rich record of Pleistocene human-associated archaeological assemblages exists, the scarcity of hominin fossils often impedes the understanding of which hominins occupied a site. Using targeted enrichment of mitochondrial DNA we show that cave sediments represent a rich source of ancient mammalian DNA that often includes traces of hominin DNA, even at sites and in layers where no hominin remains have been discovered. By automation-assisted screening of numerous sediment samples we detect Neandertal DNA in eight archaeological layers from four caves in Eurasia. In Denisova Cave we retrieved Denisovan DNA in a Middle Pleistocene layer near the bottom of the stratigraphy. Our work opens the possibility to detect the presence of hominin groups at sites and in areas where no skeletal remains are found

Neandertal-Modern Human Contact in Western Eurasia: Issues of Dating, Taxonomy, and Cultural Associations

Supporting Assimilation views of Neandertal/modern human interaction, chronostratigraphic reasoning indicates that the “transitional” industries of Europe predate modern human immigration, in agreement with their association with Neandertals in the Châtelperronian at the Grotte du Renne and St.-Césaire. Supporting the Neandertals' species separateness and less developed cognition, those industries are alternatively claimed to relate to pioneer groups of modern humans; the latter would have been the true makers of the precocious instances of symbolic material culture that, under Assimilation, are assigned to the Neandertals. However, the taxonomy of the Kent's Cavern and Grotta del Cavallo dental remains is uncertain, and their poor stratigraphic context precludes dating by association. The opposite happens at the Grotte du Renne, whose stratigraphic integrity is corroborated by both taphonomy and dating. Not questioning that the Early Ahmarian is a cultural proxy for modern humans and a source for the Protoaurignacian of Europe, its claimed emergence ~46–49 ka ago at Kebara refl ects the dating of Middle Paleolithic charcoal—to be expected, because the Early Ahmarian units at the back of the cave are made up of reworked Middle Paleolithic sediments derived from the entrance. The dating of inherited material also explains the old results for the Aurignacian of Willendorf II and Geissenklösterle. At the latter, the dates on anthropically modified samples of the hunted taxa (reindeer and horse) place its Aurignacian occupations in the same time range as elsewhere in Europe, after ~40 ka ago. The hypothesis that Neandertal/modern human contact in Europe resulted in a process of assimilation in connection with the spread of the Protoaurignacian ~41.5 ka ago remains unfalsified.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio