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Archaeological science and computing

Archaeologists discover evidence of prehistoric gold trade route

Archaeologists at the University of Southampton have found evidence of an ancient gold trade route between the south-west of the UK and Ireland. A study suggests people were trading gold between the two countries as far back as the early Bronze Age (2500BC). The research, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, used a new technique to measure the chemical …

Ancient skeleton shows leprosy may have spread to Britain from Scandinavia

An international team, including archaeologists from the University of Southampton, has found evidence suggesting leprosy may have spread to Britain from Scandinavia. The team, led by former Southampton PhD student Sarah Inskip, now at the University of Leiden, and including researchers from Historic England and the Universities of Southampton, Birmingham, Surrey, and Swansea, examined a 1500 year old male skeleton, excavated at Great Chesterford in Essex, England during the 1950s. Continue reading →

Ultraviolet RTI

A painted and incised ceramic vessel was used as case study in an attempt to evaluate the efficiency of Reflected UV (UVR) RTI and UV induced visible fluorescence (UVF) RTI. Gnathian skyphos from the University of Southampton Archaeological Collection The Highlight RTI data capture took place at the archaeological imaging laboratory of the University of Southampton, using a UV-VIS-IR modified DSLR camera, adequate filters and lighting. Continue reading →

Hands Across The Globe

Are hand stencils, older than 40,000 years in Sulawesi, the visual relic of Humans’ journey out of Africa? A paper published in Nature today (Aubert et al. 2014) reveals U-Th dates on calcite deposits formed over painted hand stencils and shows the stencils are older than 39,900 years old along with figurative art that is older than 35,400 years old. Continue reading →

Postcards from the field: Studying the Neolithic figurines from Koutroulou Magoula, Greece

Clay Neolithic figurines are some of the most enigmatic archaeological objects, which depict in a miniature form humans, animals, other anthropomorphic or zoomorphic beings, and often hybrid or indeterminate entities. Figurines have excited scholarly and public imagination, and have given rise to diverse interpretations. The assemblage from Koutroulou Magoula, a Middle Neolithic site – 5800-5300 BC – in central Greece (excavated under the co-direction of Prof. Continue reading →

Update on the Hoa Hakananai’a Statue

In 2012 ACRG members, James Miles and Hembo Pagi, completed a series of RTI captures and a photogrammetry model of the Easter Island Statue, Hoa Hakananai’a, which is currently housed in the British Museum. Since then, in collaboration with Mike Pitts, we have examined the results of these RTI files and compared them with the photogrammetry model. A brief discussion of this work can be seen in a previous blog post. Continue reading →