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Major Research Instrumentation and High Performance Computing

Recent evidence of the impact of new IT applications in paleoinformatics is shown in the research generated via a 2003 NSF MRI (0321286-Limp) High Accuracy/Resolution Surface Characterization System (HARLS-CS). The MRI permitted the acquisition of laser scanning, high density and geodetic survey equipment and a suite of other equipment and software that has already provided a number of substantial new research opportunities. These include work scanning and visualizing prehistoric rock art sites, high density mapping of fortified prehistoric sites and structures (Cothren and Gorham 2005). Daniilidis, Vranich and Limp are involved in the development of new computational approaches to the identification and extraction of structural data from archaeo-geophysical work and laser scanning at the Tiwanaku World Heritage Archaeological Site in Bolivia. This work, Computing and Retrieving 3D Archaeological Structures from Subsurface Surveying, is being conducted in collaboration between UA faculty, the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and it’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perceptions (GRASP) Lab with support from NSF High Performance Computing grant (0431070).

In the following we provide some examples of selected potential contributions of paleoinformatics training to the collaborating disciplines. Critical research questions in biogeography focus on the analysis of landscape architectures across spatial and temporal scales addressing hypotheses about the landscape parameters that can support the healthiest distributions of flora, fauna, and large human populations. In the specific arena of biogeography and paleoenvironmental sciences, the archaeological and paleontological records are the only sources of very long term data on human-environmental interactions and responses. In a specific example Tullis, Cothren (UA) and Sever (NASA) are jointly engaged in a multi-year land cover and carbon sequestration research project that encompasses all the countries of Central America. The primary focus for Tullis and Cothren is in recent changes in the modern carbon balance, while Sever’s research extends these questions back into the Classical/Post Classic Mayan periods (cf. Sever 1998, Sader et al 1992). The events of one time illuminate the other.

In another example the complex data provided by ground penetrating radar surveys of buried ancient archaeological sites presents a challenge in the development of advanced computer science techniques for computational inversion, integration, and visualization as well as new methods for dealing with the complex issues of data reduction/collection and modeling that these massive data sets create. A number of the participants in this program are pursuing such interdisciplinary studies under a current NSF high performance computing grant (IIS 0431070). Computer-based methods for the analysis of paleoenvironmental data are critical to the investigation of past human activity but they also are essential as baseline data for understanding climate change and its future directions. Photogrammetric and high density survey (e.g. laser scanning) based measurement of ancient architecture and objects is essential to both understanding the past and preserving the record but it also represent important methodological challenges in the photogrammetric field, and thus provides a high quality setting for graduate training in the photogrammetric and survey sciences.

In the Computing and Biology Report the National Academy of Sciences Committee noted that problems in biology can be usefully considered as problems in reverse engineering, and they persuasively argue that an introduction to principles of engineering thought can be of benefit to biologists. This approach may be even more applicable to paleoinformatics. Working back from the material remains of the past to a rich characterization of the behaviors, societies and other processes that generated that material clearly is the intellectual parallel to reverse engineering. A key part of the proposed structure, therefore, is the participation of faculty from the engineering disciplines.

NSF-Funded MRI and High Performance Computing

Recent evidence of the impact of new IT applications in paleoinformatics is shown in the research generated via a 2003 NSF MRI (0321286). The MRI permitted the acquisition of laser scanning, high density and geodetic survey equipment and a suite of other equipment and software that has already provided a number of substantial new research opportunities, such as approaches to the identification and extraction of structural data from archaeo-geophysical work and laser scanning at the Tiwanaku World Heritage Archaeological Site in Bolivia. This work is being conducted in collaboration between UA faculty, the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum and its General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perceptions (GRASP) Lab with support from NSF High Performance Computing (0431070).

Dental Topographic Analysis

The evolution of human diet is of great interest to paleoanthropologists as well as dieticians and others concerned with what our bodies are “designed” to eat. IT-based approaches, such as those described here, provide an unprecedented new amount of information on diet from fossil teeth, allowing us for the first time to begin to (re)evaluate reconstructions that have dominated paleoanthropology for generations. With support from NSF (BCS 0315157 and BCS 0215830, DMR 0116634 and BCS 9804882) and the Leaky Foundation, Ungar and associates have used a range of IT methods to characterize functional aspects of tooth wear and shape. The new technique, dental topographic analysis, uses high-resolution laser scanning combined with geographic information systems software to model tooth shape. It allows the quantification and comparison of tooth shape on worn and unworn teeth. In the project hundreds of tooth molds representing all subspecies of living great apes were collected for this project from museums around the world. High-resolution replicas of occlusal surfaces were prepared and scanned in 3D by laser scanning. Resulting elevation data were used to create a geographic information system for each tooth. Occlusal slope, angularity (surface jaggedness), and relief (the ratio of 3D surface area to 2D planometric area) were calculated and compared between wear stages and taxa. Results showed differences in average occlusal slope and occlusal relief between wear stages and between taxa (e.g. Ungar and M‘Kirera 2003). Ungar, Brown, Teaford and others have also developed a new, objective method of 3D microwear quantification based on tandem scanning confocal microscopy and scale-sensitive fractal analysis (Ungar et al., 2003; Scott et al., 2005). This work is key to addressing questions fundamental to human evolution, such as how natural selection has, within the context of the paleoclimatological and paleoenvironmental variability, sculpted the paleoecology and paleobiology of our Plio-Pleistocene predecessors .

Digital Reconstruction of Pictographs and Petroglyphs

Sabo is currently directing a three year study of ancient Native American pictographs and petroglyphs in Arkansas, funded by a $175K grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project investigates relationships between rock art production and ritual activities associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, a religious system accompanied by a distinctive iconography that flourished across the Southeast from A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1500. These relationships are also being studied within the context of ancient cultural landscapes, using a variety of GPS, GIS, and 3D visualization technologies. Products of this project include database-driven web sites that permit viewers of interactive 3D site reconstructions to access information about the site and its rock art contents.

Paleoenvironmental Analyses

Stahle and associates have been investigating the nature of paleoclimate changes using tree ring chronologies with support from a number of sources including NSF ATM 9528148, 9319156 and 8006964. Annual ring-width chronologies derived from ancient trees present exactly-dated, strongly-replicated archives of environmental history, and provide one of the premier quantitative records of interannual to decadal climate variability during the Holocene.

Modeling Human Land Use

Kay is conducting research with the US National Park Service at two Civil War battlefields in Arkansas and Missouri in conjunction with a historic, battlefield archaeologist, Douglas C. Scott, of the Park Service’s Midwest Archeological Center. This GIS integrated project is modeling human land-use in the western Ozark Highland from historic archives, archaeological field data, and physiological needs for daily living, and has equally valued interpretative goals for the individual battlefields.

Archaeological and Anthropological Databases

A number of the project’s principals (Green, Kay, Limp, Rose and Sabo) have been actively involved with a range of database applications that includes the National Archaeological Database, Native American Consultation Database, Standard Osteological Database (NSF BSC 9121552) and AMASDA. AMASDA is a set of databases containing information on archaeological sites and projects in Arkansas. It includes the site files database with information on over 38,000 archaeological sites; a projects database with information on over 4,600 archaeological projects; a site form image database of scanned archaeological site form images; a citation database of reports on Arkansas archaeology; a radiocarbon database; and an artifact photo and site photo database.

High Density Survey

Cothren, Limp, Tullis and current graduate students are actively working on issues related to the use of ground and air based LIDAR as related to historic sites and structures. This technique offers great potential for accurate and dense characterization of three dimensional objects and 2½ dimensional terrain. This application of laser ranging technology is still relatively new and there remain many unexplored issues. In particular, unlike most traditional and accepted photogrammetric systems which require extensive user interaction for both collection and analysis, LIDAR systems produce a dense 3D point cloud in short order with little user interaction. However, the resulting point clouds tend to be very large and include significant quantities of non-target measurements and other noise resulting from laser range/azimuth uncertainty. Decision tree data mining of LIDAR and other multi-spectral sensor data sets layers and derivatives (including spatial aggregates) improves the potential for automating feature extraction and object recognition (Tullis 2005).

Using CORONA Satellite Imagery to Map Sites

Casana is currently the associate director of a major excavation at the large site of Tell Qarqur in western Syria, and is spearheading a regional survey of surrounding areas in the lower Orontes River Valley. This field effort seeks to closely integrate intensive, CORONA satellite imagery-aided archaeological survey, targeted excavations at key sites, as well as geoarchaeological and paleo-environmental investigations. In addition, Casana is planning a new archaeological survey project on the Phoenician coast of northern Lebanon, slated to begin in August 2005, which will pursue similar research objectives. These projects provide ideal opportunities for students to gain valuable international field experience and to deploy a wide range of paleoinformatic technologies, at spatial scales from the regional, to the site-level, to individual objects. Casana and Cothren are also part of a new initiative engaged in developing protocols for processing CORONA imagery and integrating the data within a flexible, user-friendly GIS. Because CORONA imagery offers high-resolution (1-2m), stereo coverage from a time before many archaeological sites and features in regions such as the Middle East and Mediterranean were destroyed by urban and industrial development, it has become a critical and unique tool in archaeological exploration.

Archaeological Geophysics

Kvamme is currently directing a series of projects utilizing multidimensional geophysics and remote sensing in GIS environments structured for advanced imaging, spatial analysis and modeling. A four-year project at the Double Ditch State Historic Site in North Dakota, a prehistoric village dating from the 15th-18th centuries, has merged ground-based geophysical results (magnetometry, resistivity, ground-penetrating radar, electromagnetic induction) with mapping of microtopographic terrain variation through use of a robotic total station, and aerial imaging of the site through high resolution digital color and thermal infrared scanning. The results have been highly successful in identifying nearly 100 houses, thousands of corn storage pits in the 11 ha area, broad areas of earth borrowing for house and fortification constructions, and two previously unknown fortification ditches with systematically spaced bastions that nearly double the size of the village and point to a much more complex way of life (Kvamme 2005; Kvamme et al. 2005). Payne is using geophysical methods in investigation of the impacts of large scale earthquakes on prehistoric societies in the Mississippi Valley.

New Approaches to the Use And Integration of Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing for Historic Resource Identification and Evaluation

A similar three-year project is underway, with Kvamme and Limp Co-principal Investigators, sponsored by the Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). In this project four sites are being intensively investigated in Kansas, New Mexico, Georgia, and South Carolina, from a variety of environments and time periods using a multidimensional remote sensing perspective with ground-based geophysical, aerial, and satellite sensors. The focus of this project is in ways to integrate or “fuse” information from multiple sensors into a more meaningful and interpretable whole. This is being accomplished using a suite of computer graphic, GIS, mathematical, and statistical methods (Kvamme et al 2005, Kvamme 2005).

3D Representation of Frequency and Topographic Distribution

Fredrick is currently researching the frequency and topographical distribution of mythological themes in wall paintings at Pompeii. The goal of this research is a better understanding of the relationship between decoration and room function, particularly in association with the crucial Roman social rituals of dining and salutatio (reception of clients). The research aims to recreate the overall visual and kinaesthetic effect of decoration in houses where paintings are either no longer in situ or not well preserved. A few well-preserved houses tend to dominate discussion of Pompeian wall painting; however, scanning and 3D visualization technology can now be used to reintegrate older photographs, drawings, and paintings of Pompeian wall paintings with their architectural setting--frequently crumbling or overgrown now. This will allow the many houses that are not well preserved, and therefore often overlooked, to contribute to our understanding of how 3rd and 4th style painting systems work.

Site Representations, Data Mining, and Interoperabilithy

Thompson is leading UA software projects on pervasive computing and grid computing. Everything is Alive (EiA) is a vision of the coming Internet of Things where computing is pervasive and everything is alive — that is, a world where common objects, includ­ing inanimate and abstract ones, can have indi­vidual identities, memory, processing capabilities, and the ability to communicate and sense, moni­tor, and control their own environment (Thompson 2004). For this project, Thompson will focus on computational interoperability including ontology interoperability. To achieve interoperability across sites, to permit cross-site studies and data mining, a much better understanding of paleoinformatics tools and representations is a prerequisite. Surveying tools, representations, and identifying potential cross-field standards are steps on a path to a permanent universal paleoinformatics record that can be shared across disciplines. Apon is PI on an NSF MRI that allowed acquisition of a large GRID computing facility. Johnston is currently working on an OGRE mesh.xml, material, and skeleton SoftImage XSI exporter. The exporter will be used to move 3D worlds created in XSI to the OGRE graphics engine for the creation of interactive environments. Future research will include the recreation of archaeological sites as they once may have been in interactive 3D online persistent worlds. Such interactive recreations will be useful in interpretation of, and education about, the archaeological sites.

Archeogeophysical Survey of the Parkin Site

The Parkin site is a fortified 17-acre Native American village located on the St. Francis River in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley of northeastern Arkansas. It was occupied as early as A.D. 1000 until at least 1550, and is one of the best-preserved village sites of this time period in the region. The Parkin site is also important because many scholars believe it was the Native American town of Casqui visited by Hernando de Soto's expedition in the summer of 1541 and described in the written accounts of the surviving Spaniards. Lockhart, Mitchem, and Mulvihill of the Arkansas Archeological Survey carried out preliminary archeogeophysical surveys at Parkin Archeological State Park. The goal was to test the efficacy of five different geophysical techniques of near-surface prospection for archaeological features at the Parkin site (3CS29). The five technologies used were electrical resistance, magnetometry, electromagnetic conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, and ground penetrating radar.

Constructing and Conceptualizing Cultural Landscapes

The area known as Grandview Ranch is located in Hempstead County near Hope, Arkansas. This 4885-acre property, originally the antebellum Grandview Plantation, is now the Grandview Prairie Wildlife Management Area, owned by the state of Arkansas and managed by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The property had been protected from development and from looters by its previous owners. As a consequence, numerous historic and prehistoric archaeological sites within the boundaries of Grandview Ranch remain largely undisturbed and many are in pristine condition. As part of Lockhart’s archaeological research design, selected parts of the Tom Jones site were explored using archaeogeophysical equipment for near-surface prospection. Archaeogeophysics in conjunction with pinpointed excavation and analysis provides the best chance to discover the constructed and even the conceptualized components of cultural