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Blog, Page 14

Experiencing difference

With Lucy Shipley; Photos: Andrew Crosby Last semester the archaeology department launched a new Year 1 UG module called Archaeological Thought. Lucy and I taught the introduction to social/cultural anthropology section and we wanted to somehow give the students an opportunity to experience in a direct, immediate way just how fundamentally strange and different other people’s worlds and practice can be. Continue reading →

Underwater Reflectance Transformation Imaging…a success.

I’ve been working on Reflectance Transformation Image capture in a sub-aquatic environment.  On 2 May, 2013 the first ever PTM file from an RTI dataset captured entirely underwater was successfully processed in the Archaeological Computing Research Group computer lab at the University of Southampton using RTIBuilder software.   Images were captured in 1.5 meters of water at the campus Jubilee pool using a common 12mpix digital camera and a 15 watt 1000 lumen HID dive-light. Continue reading →

Digital Boat Recording: The Latest Technologies

Digital Boat Recording: The Latest Technologies The University of Southampton Centre for Maritime Archaeology and Archaeological Computing Research Group, with the support of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute, are pleased to announce a workshop on ‘Digital Boat Recording: the latest technologies’, that will be held at the University of Southampton, Faculty of Humanities, Lecture Theatre B on May 20th 2013 between 09:30 – 13:15. Continue reading →

Neanderthal culture: Old masters

Nature have published a News Feature on our work on dating cave art in Spain and the debate surrounding the symbolic capabilities of Neanderthals. Last October Nature Journalist Tim Appenzeller accompanied me and my collaborators from Spain on a sampling trip to El Castillo cave in Cantabria, Northern Spain. We were collecting samples from calcite that has formed on top of the hundreds of ice-age paintings in the cave. Continue reading →

Identities & Islam

On 19th-20th April the University of Southampton Faculty of Humanities hosted Identities & Islam: The First UK Early Career Symposium on Islamic Archaeology - an event created by myself and Sarah Inskip in the Department of Archaeology. What is Islamic Archaeology? The term Islamic Archaeology, though it is sometimes used to mean archaeological research relating to the religion of Islam itself (as opposed to the archaeology of Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Continue reading →

Southampton at the SAA Annual Meeting, Honolulu 3-7 April 2013

Recently, the department of archaeology at Southampton made its debut appearance at the Society for American Archaeology annual conference. This year it was due to be held in Honolulu, Hawai’i, which promised to make it one of the best-attended meetings of its kind. Besides the well-publicized size of the SAA meetings and the high esteem in which they are held, Honolulu is a desirable travel destination for very obvious reasons. Continue reading →

Testing a Prototype 3D Structure Light Imaging System for Underwater Archaeology

Anchor Scanning While 3D imaging has become a revolution in land archaeology, it has experienced a difficult baptism underwater. Electrical equipment and water do not mix, plus many systems do not easily transfer underwater when you add currents, visibility issues, and salt into the equation. Approaches that have been attempted include acoustics, laser-based systems, and photogrammetry with each of these having varying success depending on site conditions. Continue reading →

Capturing and exploring textures in National Archive

BT 43/57/71976: Straw hat, registered on 18 September 1850; proprietor unknown Some time ago we made a visit to UK National Archive with James Miles to test RTI technology on a wide range of examples provided by the National Archive. James went back in September of 2012 for a second time to do more recording. Recently Dinah Eastop, a Curatorial Research Fellow from the National Archives has written two blog posts and presented the results of the work on their blog. Continue reading →