In late December of 2012, MATRIX Director Dean Rehberger and Audio-Visual Lab Consultant Mike Green traveled to Senegal at part of a Smithsonian-funded pilot project that focused on creating 3D, digital representations of cultural heritage artifacts from the Gorée  Island excavations. The team used a process called stereophotogrammetry to create the 3D representations, which will then be shared freely online in the Gorée Island Archeological Digital Repository.

Stereophotogrammetry is the practice of taking high-quality digital still photographs in a circle around an object. These photographs are then fed into a computer program that uses the photographs to define and triangulate specific geometric points on the object. These geographic points are then matched throughout all the photographs taken of the object (which can often range from between 50-100 images) and are used to create 3D representations of the artifact. Stereophotogrammetry is a relatively inexpensive and mobile process, making it ideal for Africa-based cultural institutions who typically have lower budgets and need the capacity to document objects both within the museum and in the field.

MATRIX’s trip to Senegal was intended to serve as a brief training session where Rehberger and Green taught local Senegalese students how to complete the work of stereophotogrammetry. This included instruction on how to use DSLR cameras, how to take high quality photographs, how to set up equipment, and how to manipulate images in the 3D photo creation software. During their one-week stay, Rehberger and Green were able to host three full days of training, which resulted in six Senegalese students now being trained in the art of stereophotogrammetry. These six students are now able to train other students, resulting in a multiplication of equipped personnel who can begin cataloging and preserving the extensive archives of archaeological artifacts that exist at Gorée Island (and in Senegal as a whole). In this way, the Senegalese cultural institutions are self-sustaining and are not dependent on outside help to complete importation documentation and preservation work.

The trip to Senegal was meant to serve as a test bed for future projects that will help create a larger, 3D digital repository of African cultural heritage materials as a way of both preserving the materials themselves and as a method of sharing these materials to scholars in an open-source, open-access digital environment. This project addresses dire needs in the African cultural heritage community, including a lack of best-practice-ready heritage institutions and personnel within Africa; a history of colonial bias in artifact description and preservation; and the rapid degradation of cultural materials in Africa due to politics, wars, environmental concerns, and time.

The Gorée Island Archaeological Digital Repository is made possible through active collaboration between MATRIX, Michigan State University,  AFRICOM, the Smithsonian Institution, the Association of African American Museums, and the American Association of Museums (now the American Alliance of Museums). MATRIX is excited to continue our tradition of international partnerships in order to preserve and disseminate these important cultural heritage materials in digital spaces.

MATRIX Associate Director Ethan Watrall, traveled to the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) Institute on Thursday, October 04, 2012 to give a digital dialogue entitled “Archaeology and the Big Tent of the Digital Humanities.” Watrall talks about how the classification of the digital humanities as a “big tent” has led to the question of who is (and who is not) included under the label of “digital humanist.”

As an assistant professor within the MSU Department of Anthropology and the Associate Director at MATRIX, a digital humanities center, Watrall has clearly seen connections between his work as an archaeological anthropologist and the digital humanities. Unfortunately, however, the majority of his colleagues have not. The reason(s) behind this separation are puzzling and, Watrall argues, complicated.

In this digital dialogue, Watrall expounds on those reasons and the opportunities missed because of them. More importantly, he lays out what he sees as important commonalities between the two fields and suggests pathways for the two fields to become integrated and engaged with each other.

The Digital Dialogues series are produced by MITH with the goal of generating discussions, presentations, and intellectual exchanges that scholars can build into their weekly schedules. To review Watrall’s dialogue, or to view past dialogues in the series, visit the Digital Dialogues homepage at http://mith.umd.edu/digitaldialogues/ or follow the program on Twitter at @digdialog.

The print version of Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration was released this week by the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. Edited by Eric Kansa (Lead Developer of Open Context), and Sarah Witcher-Kansa (Executive Director of Alexandria Archive Institute), and Ethan Watrall (MATRIX Associate Director & Assistant Professor of Anthropology)the volume is the first book in the Cotsen Institute’s new Digital Archaeology Series. The book can be purchased from the David Brown Book Company. An open acces version of the book is also available at the University of California’s eScholarship repository.

The volume’s description reads:

How is the Web transforming the professional practice of archaeology? And as archaeologists accustomed to dealing with “deep time,” how can we best understand the possibilities and limitations of the Web in meeting the specialized needs of professionals in this field? These are among the many questions posed and addressed in Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, edited by Eric Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall. With contributions from a range of experts in archaeology and technology, this volume is organized around four key topics that illuminate how the revolution in communications technology reverberates across the discipline: approaches to information retrieval and information access; practical and theoretical concerns inherent in design choices for archaeology’s computing infrastructure; collaboration through the development of new technologies that connect field-based researchers and specialists within an international archaeological community; and scholarly communications issues, with an emphasis on concerns over sustainability and preservation imperatives. This book not only describes practices that attempt to mitigate some of the problems associated with the Web, such as information overload and disinformation, it also presents compelling case studies of actual digital projects—many of which are rich in structured data and multimedia content or focused on generating content from the field “in real time,” and all of which demonstrate how the Web can and is being used to transform archaeological communications into forms that are more open, inclusive, and participatory. Above all, this volume aims to share these experiences to provide useful guidance for other researchers interested in applying technology to archaeology.

MATRIX is very happy to announce the publication of Archaeology 2.0: New Tools for Communication and Collaboration.  Co-edited by Eric C. Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall (MATRIX Associate Director and Department of Anthropology Anthropology Assistant Professor), the volume explores how the web is transforming archaeology and is the first in the new Cotsen Digital Archaeology series published by UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.

The volume’s description reads:

How is the Web transforming the professional practice of archaeology? And as archaeologists accustomed to dealing with “deep time,” how can we best understand the possibilities and limitations of the Web in meeting the specialized needs of professionals in this field? These are among the many questions posed and addressed in Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, edited by Eric Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, and Ethan Watrall. With contributions from a range of experts in archaeology and technology, this volume is organized around four key topics that illuminate how the revolution in communications technology reverberates across the discipline: approaches to information retrieval and information access; practical and theoretical concerns inherent in design choices for archaeology’s computing infrastructure; collaboration through the development of new technologies that connect field-based researchers and specialists within an international archaeological community; and scholarly communications issues, with an emphasis on concerns over sustainability and preservation imperatives. This book not only describes practices that attempt to mitigate some of the problems associated with the Web, such as information overload and disinformation, it also presents compelling case studies of actual digital projects—many of which are rich in structured data and multimedia content or focused on generating content from the field “in real time,” and all of which demonstrate how the Web can and is being used to transform archaeological communications into forms that are more open, inclusive, and participatory. Above all, this volume aims to share these experiences to provide useful guidance for other researchers interested in applying technology to archaeology.

The digital edition of the volume is especially important because it is open access (hosted by the  University of California eScholarship service) and being made available freely to the scholarly community and the public under a Creative Commons BY-SA (By Attribution, Share Alike) license.

The volume’s c0-editors went so far as to a prepare a unique copyright statement in order to provide both context and rationale for why the open access edition of the volume under this specific CC license:

This volume carries a Creative Commons BY-SA (By Attribution, Share Alike, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) license. In short, this means that others can freely distribute, remix, and build upon the contents of this volume, provided two very important conditions are met: the original author receives proper attribution (especially citation) and all subsequent works carry the same license. We chose a Creative Commons license primarily because of our deep concerns in the sustainability of sharply escalating costs in scholarly publishing. These costs make it increasingly difficult for educational institutions, our col- leagues in commercial archaeology, students, and members of the interested public to (legally) obtain peer-review publications. Please note that the Creative Commons BY-SA license allows for commercial use, as well as free distribution both inside and out- side of the Academy. Permissions for commercial reuse does not, however, mean commercial appropriation. The “copyleft” philosophy embodied by this license enables this work to move in many contexts, but any adaptation or enhancement of this work must be shared back, openly, with the community. Finally, because this license requires proper attribution in any subsequent duplication or adaptation, we hope this volume helps build exposure and recognition for our contributions, and that our colleagues follow in this example. With enough accessible and open data (“data” that includes content like this book), we open up more opportunities for text-mining, tagging, aggregating, linking, visualizing, and hopefully better understanding. 

The print edition of the volume will be available for purchase from UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.