Luca BEZZI | Alessandro BEZZI | Rupert GIETL | Gianluca FONDRIEST | Giuseppe NAPONIELLO | Mattia SEGATA
(Arc-Team, Cles, Italy)
Keywords: Real-Time, 3D, Archaeometry, WebGIS, Archaeorobotics
Abstract:
Since the excavation is considered as the most destructive process in the methodology of the discipline, the last decade has seen a growing commitment in developing systems able to document and analyze the archaeological record in real time, or at least to reduce the phase of data post-processing. Due to the lack of reproducibility of the excavation, which is one of the stronger distances between archeology itself and the main principle of the scientific method, the strategy applied to the field-work represents the most sensible point for the cognitive processes, being subject to possible influence of fatal (not reversible) errors. To avoid this negative impact, often connected with wrong or too fast interpretations, many solutions has been developed, especially in the field of professional archeology, in which the lack of budget and time can increase stress conditions and reduce the options during the decision making stages.
Considering the issues described above, this contributions intends to present the experience of Arc-Team in dealing the problems connected with the archaeological excavation, through a range of different solutions which can be summarize, on one hand, in the attempt to increase the amount of information collected on the field, while decreasing the time-consumption operations in data acquisition, on the other, in the effort to reach analytical results directly on the field, at least for those knowledge which can reduce the risk of error in decision making. This approach allows to postpone on a later stage the sensible data interpretation, to avoid a risky data selection during the excavation, and to perform a better data-driven choice in defining a digging strategy. Practically Arc-Team research focuses on several targets: a partial migration from a open software based 3D documentation, which needs post-processing, to an open hardware based real-time 3D mapping (improving robotics technologies in archeology); a real-time data interpretation on the field via GIS and WebGIS, reducing the gap with traditional documentation in this field (archaeological drawing); some real-time basic chemical and physical analysis (sedimentation test, phosphates, etc…), following the concept of moving primary investigations from laboratory to the field.
Relevance conference | Relevance session:
Combining physical and chemical primary analysis on the field with data acquisition, management and processing with GIS and WebGIS.
Innovation:
The use of open source software technologies (based on the Linux system ArcheOS) and open hardware robotics (based on the system ROS) to improve the data acquisition, management and analysis processes.
References:
Some references about the use of chemical and physical analysis and open hardware robotics (UAV) to the archaeological excavation:http://arc-team-open-research.blogspot.it/2015/07/the-archaeometric-excavation.html
article (IT):
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304396751_Lo_Scavo_archeologico_professionale_innovazioni_e_best_practice_mediante_metodologie_aperte_e_Open_Research
