Archaeological Map Research Articles

Current State of Archiving Archaeological Reports in Bulgaria: still more physical than digital

This article provides an overview of the current state of archaeological archiving in Bulgaria. It briefly outlines the legislation that regulates archaeological fieldwork activities. Although the national legislation regulates the non-destructive and destructive activities equally, differences occur owing to the existence of the 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria', a national 'sites and monuments' type of archaeological information system. Currently, online storage of brief data and information is possible for different archaeological sites. Its next version will be based on GIS and geographic features that allow storage of raw field survey data. According to the regulations, paper/digital reports of all fieldwork activities are collected yearly and copies of all of them are stored at the 'Scientific Archive' section at the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Although their digitisation is still in the early stages, the good news is that the centralised archaeological workflow regulates their storage in one place, which makes them more easily accessible. The annual publication of the 'Archaeological Discoveries and Excavations' series, with summaries for all fieldwork activities in the year, is also very useful for keeping track of the archaeological work and results.

The "Meda" Project: Creation of The Underwater Archaeological Map in Santa Marinella. Prospects for The Reconstruction of the Ancient Landscape

The importance of studying the coasts and the seabed is already known. In any case, the submerged archaeological presences remain today an aspect not yet addressed in a completely systematic way, often remaining a rather incomplete knowledge. The cataloguing of submerged archaeological evidence, through the formation of underwater deposits maps and the study of these, through the contribution of GIS methodologies, fortuitous - to the understanding of their origins and their transformation over time.

UAV LiDAR Survey for Archaeological Documentation in Chiapas, Mexico

Airborne laser scanning has proven useful for rapid and extensive documentation of historic cultural landscapes after years of applications mapping natural landscapes and the built environment. The recent integration of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) with LiDAR systems is potentially transformative and offers complementary data for mapping targeted areas with high precision and systematic study of coupled natural and human systems. We report the results of data capture, analysis, and processing of UAV LiDAR data collected in the Maya Lowlands of Chiapas, Mexico in 2019 for a comparative landscape study. Six areas of archaeological settlement and long-term land-use reflecting a diversity of environments, land cover, and archaeological features were studied. These missions were characterized by areas that were variably forested, rugged, or flat, and included pre-Hispanic settlements and agrarian landscapes. Our study confirms that UAV LiDAR systems have great potential for broader application in high-precision archaeological mapping applications. We also conclude that these studies offer an important opportunity for multi-disciplinary collaboration. UAV LiDAR offers high-precision information that is not only useful for mapping archaeological features, but also provides critical information about long-term land use and landscape change in the context of archaeological resources.

THE INTERACTIVE DIGITAL MAP - A MODERN APPROACH FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT

The paper presents one of the main products of the ArchTerr project “Integrated management of archaeological heritage: archaeological map and administrative procedures for heritage research and protection”. The project is funded by UEFISCDI following the collaboration of two scientific research centers, “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galați and “Politehnica” University of Bucharest. The aim of this scientific paper is to present the main product of the above mentioned project, the interactive digital map of the historical archaeological heritage with geospatial information (Geographic Information Systems GIS). The paper presents the national context that generated the need to develop such a computer application, some European archaeological heritage records models that could be used as examples to follow and the achievements in this field in Romania. The new functionalities introduced by the interactive digital map developed within the ArchTerr project are: polygonal representation of any archeological site surface, representation of its protection area (when the site is also a historical monument), representation of researched areas using preventive archaeological methods, the representation of the archaeological discharged areas inside a site (following the preventive archaeological research). Regarding the efforts to protect the archaeological heritage, we mention the daily activity usefulness of this map for a wide range of users: county directorates for culture; urban planning services (within city halls and county councils); cadastral offices; real estate agencies; any person who intend to ask for a building permit inside an archaeological heritage protected area. At www.archterr.ro it could be found the fully functional interactive digital map.

النيل والصحراء في ضوء نتائج أبحاث مشروع كدرمة

This paper presents the results of the University of Khartoum Archaeological Project undertaken on Kedurma, north of the Nile, third cataract region in northern Sudan during 2018-2021. The project was supported by Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project as a brunch of Nauri Archaeological Project, the Ministry of Higher Education in Sudan, and later by the British Institute in Eastern Africa.The study followed an interdisciplinary approach to locate and record all archaeological remains in the area to provide a complete archive to the Sudan Antiquities Service in order to assist with heritage management and preservation and to use the data as a basis to undertake a detailed scientific analysis of the ancient settlement and usage history of thearea. The results demonstrate the character of the Meroitic site of Kedurma as well as recorded different archaeological remains, which belonging to the Lower and Middle Paleolithic Periods in the area east of the site. The work also supplement the archaeological map of the Sudan with many new sites that could be belongs to the Old Stone Age. An era which characterized by the scarcity of its sites and the lack of studies.

Exploring Landscape Archaeology and UAV-Based Survey in the Kochkor Valley, Kyrgyzstan

ABSTRACT From the earliest archaeological investigations along Central Asia’s Tien Shan range, researchers have noted the diversity of highland communities and their participation in complex subsistence, exchange, and political systems. However, landscape archaeological approaches that might address socio-economic integrations have been limited by discontinuous, sometimes skewed datasets. Here, we present the results of UAV-based survey at Kok-Sai, an upland alluvial slope in the Kochkor Valley of north-central Kyrgyzstan, in which we identified more than 900 archaeological features in a 380 ha study area. Burials comprise roughly half of the identified features; stone structures, water catchments, irrigation channels, and terraces make up the other half. In an iterative interpretive process, we examine this busy landscape against high-resolution topographic and hydrological models, identifying repeated investment in the local physical and cultural infrastructure. Beyond the creation of a denser archaeological map for the area, the details of long-term, local landscape creation afforded by this study intersect with ongoing discussions of the organizational strategies and scales of highland agro-pastoralism.

МНОГОСЛОЙНОЕ СЕЛИЩЕ ТАГАНАЕВО 5 В ПРЕДУРАЛЬЕ (ПРЕДВАРИТЕЛЬНЫЕ РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ МЕЖДИСЦИПЛИНАРНЫХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ)

In November 2019 the joint group of researcers from the Department of State Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Institution of History, Language and Literature of Ufa Federal Research Center of Russian Academy of Science has conducted archaeological exploration with the aim to find new monuments of the Middle Ages in the Kushnarenkovsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan. As a result of this exploration Taganaevo 5 settlement was discovered. Collection of materials found in the course of the test pits drilling consist of animal bones, fragments of pottery and handbuilt ceramics, clay coatening, hand forged nails, a fragment of the iron knife and a lithic core. Taganaevo 5 presents itself a multilayer site. The upper strata of its’ cultural layer refer to the ethnographic time dating back to the 19th century, middle strata contain ceramics of Bahmutino and Kushnarenkovo cultures (V-VII ) and at the lower strata have ceramics of the Srubnaya archaeological culture related to the era of the late Bronze Age and the Eneolithic (Agidel culture). Exploraion works which are aimed at finding new archaeologial sites in the forest-steppe zone of the Cis-Urals as well as the cultural and chronological attribution of these sites contribute greatly to the accomulation of a source base for an archaeological map showing resettlement of the representatives of the Agidel ceramics culture and representatives of the Srubnaya, Kushnarenkovo and Bahmutino ceramics types. As well as the location and spread of the settlements (historical sites, villages and auls) during the Modern Age.

Ἔθνη Θρᾳκῶν στὴ Θράκη τοῦ Αἰγαίου κατὰ τοὺς ἑλληνιστικοὺς καὶ ρωμαϊκοὺς χρόνους I. Κορπίλοι καὶ Κορπιλική

Of two articles devoted to the Thracian tribes attested in Aegean Thrace during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the first, published here, focuses on the tribe of the Corpiloi (the second article, under the title ‘Ἔθνη Θρᾳκῶν στὴ Θράκη τοῦ Αἰγαίου κατὰ τοὺς ἑλληνιστικοὺς καὶ ρωμαϊκοὺς χρόνους, ΙΙ. Σαπαῖοι καὶ Σαπαϊκή’, devoted to the Sapaioi, will be published in the following volume of Τεκμήρια). The relevant testimonia, exclusively literary, range from the first century BC ‒or the beginning of the second century BC, for those who accept the emendation Coreli-Corpili in the text of Livy‒ to the beginning of the second century AD. They consist of short references in Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Solinus, a reference to the στενὰ τῶν Κορπίλων by Appian in conjunction with the battle of Philippi in 42 BC, as well as a reference to a Κορπιλικὴ στρατηγία in Claudius Ptolemy. The present article tries to define Corpiloi’s localization, suggesting the lower course of the Hebrus river, mainly to the west but also, possibly, to the east of the river, up to the north of Ainos. In view of their relatively short emergence in ancient sources, the article also addresses the question of Corpiloi’s relation to the region’s major tribes, namely the Odrysai and the Sapaioi. Finally, a brief and preliminary overview of the region’s archaeological map indicates integration into the region’s wider cultural sphere.

Stochastic models support rapid peopling of Late Pleistocene Sahul

The peopling of Sahul (the combined continent of Australia and New Guinea) represents the earliest continental migration and settlement event of solely anatomically modern humans, but its patterns and ecological drivers remain largely conceptual in the current literature. We present an advanced stochastic-ecological model to test the relative support for scenarios describing where and when the first humans entered Sahul, and their most probable routes of early settlement. The model supports a dominant entry via the northwest Sahul Shelf first, potentially followed by a second entry through New Guinea, with initial entry most consistent with 50,000 or 75,000 years ago based on comparison with bias-corrected archaeological map layers. The model’s emergent properties predict that peopling of the entire continent occurred rapidly across all ecological environments within 156–208 human generations (4368–5599 years) and at a plausible rate of 0.71–0.92 km year−1. More broadly, our methods and approaches can readily inform other global migration debates, with results supporting an exit of anatomically modern humans from Africa 63,000–90,000 years ago, and the peopling of Eurasia in as little as 12,000–15,000 years via inland routes.

Combined Detection and Segmentation of Archeological Structures from LiDAR Data Using a Deep Learning Approach

Until recently, archeological prospection using LiDAR data was based mainly on expert-based and time-consuming visual analyses. Currently, deep learning convolutional neural networks (deep CNN) are showing potential for automatic detection of objects in many fields of application, including cultural heritage. However, these computer-vision based algorithms remain strongly restricted by the large number of samples required to train models and the need to define target classes before using the models. Moreover, the methods used to date for archaeological prospection are limited to detecting objects and cannot (semi-)automatically characterize the structures of interest. In this study, we assess the contribution of deep learning methods for detecting and characterizing archeological structures by performing object segmentation using a deep CNN approach with transfer learning. The approach was applied to a terrain visualization image derived from airborne LiDAR data within a 200 km² area in Brittany, France. Our study reveals that the approach can accurately (semi-)automatically detect, delineate, and characterize topographic anomalies, and thus provides an effective tool to inventory many archaeological structures. These results provide new perspectives for large-scale archaeological mapping.

Определение границ археологических памятников с использованием БПЛА-съемки: опыт решения задач на примере Горного Алтая

Within the framework of the expanding technical and technological capabilities of scientific methods, of special interest are new ways of obtaining field measurements, which can be successfully applied in combination with traditional archaeological survey. The technology of unmanned shooting acts is one of such methods. In the course of work on the mapping of archaeological sites and the establishment of their boundaries, a comprehensive survey technology was developed and tested. Intermediate and final digital products have been created for all the objects. The first ones include orthomosaic, digital elevation models and arrays (clouds); the second ones include digital plans (on a scale of 1: 500–1: 5000) with coordinates of turning points and boundaries of sites. When carrying out a complex of field and office work, the technology of UAV shooting with the help of a drone of a copter type was worked out, the optimal position of the reference signs and their number for the shot sites were determined. We established the most favorable shooting conditions, under which weather conditions could differ significantly from those prescribed in the instructions. So, for example, it is possible to perform GNSS surveys and UAV surveys when precipitation are light and wind speeds up to 10 m / s. The resulting errors are compensated partly by the on-board accelerometer, and partly by the algorithms for geometric correction of images and mosaics in general. Key words: boundary definition, archaeological mapping, geoinformatics methods, unmanned systems, aerial photography Acknowledgements: The research was carried out with the financial support of the RFBR project No. 18–05–00864 “Development of the Theory and Methods of Archaeological GIS Mapping and Analysis of Geoarchaeological Data (on the example of model cites of Altai)”.

La voie de l'Itinéraire d’Antonin d’Aginnum (Agen) à Lugdunum (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges)

La voie de l'Itinéraire d’Antonin d’Aginnum (Agen) à Lugdunum (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges)

ИЗ ИСТОРИИ АРХЕОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ИЗУЧЕНИЯ КАБАРДИНО-БАЛКАРИИ: ПРОФЕССОР КГПИ КОНСТАНТИН ЭДУАРДОВИЧ ГРИНЕВИЧ

The article is devoted to the issues of the origin and formation of the archaeological study of Kabardino-Balkaria as one of the areas of scientific research at the Kabardino-Balkarian State Pedagogical Institute (since 1957 – the Kabardino-Balkarian State University). The scientific and pedagogical activity of one of the first professors of the historical department, a well-known specialist in the field of ancient history, Konstantin Eduardovich Grinevich is shown. In 1949, he led the Kabardian archaeological expedition, the result of which was the compilation of an archaeological map of the republic. K.E. Grinevich made a great contribution to the study of the cultural heritage of Kabardino-Balkaria and the training of young personnel in the field of archeology.

Артефакты эпохи палеометалла с памятника Усть-Ульма III в Амурской области

Three sites of Ust-Ulma I—III were explored in the 1980s in the Mazanovsky District of Amur Region, at the mouth of the Ulma River which flows into the Selemdzha River, on its left side. Essentially, the evidence from these sites represents the Late Paleolithic Selemdzha culture. However, the upper cultural layer at these sites contained the evidence both from the Neolithic (Ust-Ulma I) and the Paleometal Age. Most of the artifacts, including pottery fragments of different periods, bronze objects, and stone tools come from the Ust-Ulma III site. Their study has shown that they belonged to two periods of the Paleometal Age. Fragments ofvessel rims of the Uril and Talakan cultures of the Early Iron Age, as well as Mikhailovka culture of the Early Middle Ages have been unambiguously identified. There were a few finds of the Uril pottery, but a bronze knife of distinctive shape belonging to this culture was discovered at the nearby Ust-Ulma I site. The largest number of pottery fragments, one bronze adornment, and one stone polished tool of distinctive shape are definitely associated with the Talakan culture. Different pottery fragments of the Mikhailovka culture have revealed that they belonged to about ten vessels; however, there were not many fragments belonging to this culture at the excavated site. Introduction of this small pottery collection into scholarly use has made it possible to place one more location of the Uril, Talakan and Mikhailovka cultures on the archaeological map of Amur Region. In addition, the evidence of the Late Neolithic Osinoozersk culture was present at the nearby Ust-Ulma I site.

The DistoX2: A methodological solution to archaeological mapping in poorly accessible environments

Spatial information is crucial to archaeological field research. From the plane-table to the total station, recent technological advances have enabled data collection to become fully digital and highly accurate. Nevertheless, the recent expansion of archaeological expeditions to novel environments often incompatible with modern mapping equipment, e.g. tropical forests or ephemeral shorelines, calls for further methodological innovations. Such projects, as well as those under logistic or financial limitations, are still largely reliant on more time consuming, less accurate, traditional approaches, e.g. offset or tape and compass methods. The DistoX2 is a digital, highly portable, and versatile hand-held instrument originally developed for speleological surveys where total stations and DGPSs are not feasible. However, the potential of the DistoX2 system as a spatial mapping tool in above-ground contexts has been surprisingly overlooked. Here, we present a first assessment of the applicability of the DistoX2 for archaeological mapping in non-speleological environments. We investigate precision and accuracy in controlled above-ground settings relative to two common methods of data collection – total station, and tape and compass. We test the relative precision of the DistoX2 when mounted on a tripod or operated in hand-held mode and discuss its applicability, and potential combined used, in the context of other increasingly popular methods – GNSS and SfM photogrammetry. With a mean error of ≈5.00 cm for horizontal readings and ≈2.00 cm for vertical readings, the DistoX2 is considerably more accurate than the tape and compass method (µ ≈ 67.00 cm horizontal; µ ≈ 3.00 cm vertical). While the DistoX2 exceeds the error thresholds of projects that require high spatial sensitivity (e.g. Palaeolithic excavations), it provides a reliable, low-cost and more accurate alternative to many projects that resort to more traditional methods. This fills an existent methodological and financial gap amongst the growing diversity of archaeological expeditions.

Interpretation of archaeological data based on direct and remote retrieval of information

This paper focuses on the archaeological and architectural analysis of the Late Roman settlement of Umm al-Dabadib (Kharga Oasis, Egypt). The available information on the archaeological remains of this site includes on-site hand-made sketches, photographs, 3D surveys. The final aim of this specific research is the interpretation and reconstruction of the historical context of this site by combining sources of different nature. This paper presents the methodology employed to elaborate the 3D data in order to achieve a digital restitution of the archaeological map of the entire settlement, which covers an area of about one hectare. The starting point was the elaboration of the close-range photogrammetric survey of the Fortified Settlement that allowed the creation of a 3D point cloud of the whole area, based on the elaboration of over 5,000 photographs, from which a complete and detailed metric model was derived. This 3D model played a key role to extract metric information and to reconstruct the geometrical structure of the settlement, but this result could only be achieved thanks to the successful combination of the digital data with the hand-made sketches and the pictures taken in situ in the recent past. This paper represents an outcome of the project LIFE (Living In a Fringe Environment), funded by the ERC CoGrant 681673.

Automated mapping of cultural heritage in Norway from airborne lidar data using faster R-CNN

The existing cultural heritage mapping in Norway is incomplete. Some selected areas are mapped well, while the majority of areas only contain chance discoveries, often with bad positional accuracy. The goal of this research was to develop automated tools for improving the cultural heritage mapping in Norway, thus enabling detailed mapping of large areas within realistic budgets and time frames. The focus was on three types of cultural heritage that occur frequently in many types of Norwegian landscape: grave mounds, pitfall traps in deer hunting systems and charcoal kilns.A recent development in deep neural networks for object detection in natural images is the region-proposing convolutional neural network (R-CNN), which may also be used for cultural heritage detection in local relief model (LRM) visualizations of airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. Python code for ‘Simple Faster R-CNN’ was downloaded from Github.On 737 test images (16.6 km2) not seen during training, 87 % of the true cultural heritage objects were correctly identified, while 24 % of the predicted cultural heritage locations were false. However, all test images were small (150 m × 150 m) and contained at least one cultural heritage object, meaning that the false positive rate may be higher for an entire landscape. In Larvik municipality, Vestfold and Telemark County, on a 67 km2 area not seen during training, the R-CNN correctly identified 38 % of the true grave mounds, with 89 % false positives. On a 937 km2 area covering Øvre Eiker municipality, Viken County, the R-CNN correctly identified 90 % of the charcoal kilns, with 38 % false positives.In conclusion, we have demonstrated that Faster R-CNN is well suited for semi-automatic detection of cultural heritage objects such as charcoal kilns, grave mounds and pitfall traps in high resolution airborne lidar data. However, it is desirable to reduce the false positive rate in order to limit the amount of visual inspection needed when the method is applied to large areas for detailed archaeological mapping.

Landscapes and landforms connected with anthropogenic processes over three millennia: The Servian Walls at the Esquiline Hill (Rome, Italy)

Urban centers are characterized by scarcity of outcrops. At the urban-planning level, the examination of results from previous geological surveys and studies may provide sufficient data for an accurate subsurficial geologic modeling. In addition, in historical centers a GIS-based multitemporal analysis of historical and archaeological maps, and the examination of archive documents and reports, may be effective especially for the detection of geomorphic changes. The application of such a methodology at the Esquiline Hill allowed to detect the three-millennia-long landscape-modification main phases connected with the construction of the oldest city walls. They include a unique sequence of anthropogenic aggradational and erosional phases that shaped many anthropogenic landforms, presently visible and invisible, or vanished. Among them, the anthropogenic hill Monte della Giustizia, vanished since the end of the 19th century CE when it was erased, and the military moat, excavated in the 6th century BCE and enlarged in the 4th century BCE, finally backfilled in the 4th century CE, since then invisible. These geomorphic changes lastly output a flat leveled landscape similar to the previous volcanic plateau. Results suggest that the “geomorphological convergence,” that is, the resemblance between natural landforms created by different morphogenetic processes, also exists between natural and artificial landforms. Moreover, the study evidenced relationships between landforms and the damage status of historical masonry buildings, specifically connected with their foundation over thick layers of geotechnically-weak anthropogenic deposits. This advises that the multidisciplinary approach may also provide risk managers additional geological features to be evaluated as potential sources of natural hazard.

«BUSURMENSKE» HILL-FORT ON THE IKVA RIVER

The results of research and localization of the «Busurmenskoe» settlement, located on the left bank of the river Ikva between the village Voronkiv and Zatyshne of Boryspil district, Kiev region are presented in the paper. The main feature of the settlements is the presence of fortifications: this feature often helps to find them. But ditches and ramparts are have been often destroyed by plowing, residential, commercial or industrial activity. The history of research from the late 19th century is connected with such researchers as A. V. Storozhenko, P. G. Klepatsky, Y. Y. Morgunov, V. K. Kozyba. The remains of the fortifications were located on the left bank of the river Ikva (the Dnieper basin). The author carried out the survey of the area and has found that nowadays the visual fortifications are hardly traced — only the depression of the moat could be watched. The settlement had a rounded shape with diameter of 73 Ч 75 (0.5 ha). The width of the moat is 4—5 m. The spread of the surface finds such as the fragments of wheel-made pottery is watching around the acropolis within 310 Ч 280 m (ca. 8.68 ha). Obviously, the area of spread coincides with the approximate boundaries of the suburb (posad). Probably there was the fortified suburb around the acropolis characteristic of this type of fortification of the micro-region. The surface finds from the site is dated only to the Old Rus time. The largest number of finds is the fragments of the wheel-made pottery. Among them are 33 rims dated to the 12th — the first half of 13th century, fragments of bases, walls with incised decoration, and handles of vessels. The collection of finds is added by metallic items and the fragment of grinder. According to dating finds the site «Busurmenske» should be dated to 12th — the first half of the 13th century. The localized hill-fort complements the archaeological map of Old Rus sites of Pereyaslav region. The site needs further research and protecting measures.

Making LiGHT Work of Large Area Survey? Developing Approaches to Rapid Archaeological Mapping and the Creation of Systematic National-scaled Heritage Data

The characteristics and form of heritage data are fundamental to its utility in a range of applications, particularly so for heritage agencies who have a remit in management, policy, and the creation and curation of national databases of monuments, sites, and landscapes. Written from the perspective of an archaeological survey function in a national heritage agency, this paper draws on preliminary outcomes from a research and development project that aims to proof protocols for creating systematic data across large areas drawing heavily on remotely sensed data. This recognises that a systemic consideration of the implications of changing technology and data is sometimes desirable, rather than gradual assimilation of developments into existing practice. In particular, the issues being addressed relate to the challenges and opportunities of proliferating remote sensed data and digital workflows. These include the strategic assessment of threat, consideration of fitness for purpose of different datasets relative to landscape characteristics, the documentation of processes and sources of information, the suitability of data structures, and the mechanisms for automating site detection and data creation.