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Jitter plot comparing the CoM with the CoBB for (in order) picks from Ubeidiya and Nahal Zihor, handaxes from Nahal Zihor Group A, handaxes from Um Qatafa, handaxes from Nahal Zihor Group B, sickle blades from Kfar HaHoresh, Spheroids from Ubeidiya, Neolithic bifaces from Nahal Zihor, and Neolithic bifaces from Kfar HaHoresh The y-axis shows the difference in y-coordinates, and the x-axis shows the difference in x-coordinates, normalized by artifact length and width respectively. Grey vertical lines show the maximum variation in CoM and CoBB x-coordinates. The mean values and standard deviation error bars are shown in blue.
Source publication
The study of artifacts is fundamental to archaeological research. The features of individual artifacts are recorded, analyzed, and compared within and between contextual assemblages. Here we present and make available for academic-use Artifact3-D, a new software package comprised of a suite of analysis and documentation procedures for archaeologica...
Citations
... Some tests such as the Leeb rebound hardness and Schmidt hammer, traditionally used in industry, have been also adopted by geologists and archaeologists to measure attributes such as the hardness of materials [9,33,34]. Recently the use of 3D technologies allowed researchers to collect quantitative data at different scales, including data for morphometric analyses [29,35,36] and detailed analyses of the surfaces including the acquisition of data on surface roughness [37]. ...
The evolution of human behaviour is marked by key decision-making processes reflected in technological variability in the early archaeological record. As part of the technological system, differences in raw material quality directly affect the way that humans produce, design and use stone tools. The selection, procurement and use of various raw materials requires decision-making to evaluate multiple factors such as suitability to produce and design tools, but also the materials’ efficiency and durability in performing a given task. Therefore, characterizing the physical properties of various lithic raw materials is crucial for exploring changes in human interactions with their natural environment through time and space and for understanding their technological behaviour. In this paper, we present the first step in an ongoing program designed to understand the decision-making criteria involved in the use of raw materials by the early Acheulian tool-makers at the Melka Wakena (MW) site-complex, located on the Ethiopian highlands. We present the results of the first experimental step, in which we identified and measured the engineering properties of raw materials in the lithic assemblages. These data serve as an objective, quantifiable baseline for natural experiments as well as archaeological inquiries into the technological decision-making processes of early Pleistocene hominins in Africa.
... Thus, recent work in cultural analytics, distant reading, and digital literary studies has opened up radically new possibilities for understanding a range of previously 'unthinkable archives' of research -including 'less transmittable scholarly literature,' dance reviews, photography criticism, or early female magazines and newspapers and neglected novels. In each case, the studies have led to a blossoming of new understanding of research phenomena previously hidden from scholars or ideologically underrepresented in scholarship [25,26]. This kind of distant reading and computational textual analysis provides innovative ways of identifying, evaluating, and interpreting texts and cultural artifacts. ...
Digital Humanities (DH) is an interdisciplinary field at the confluence of traditional humanities and computational technologies. It examines new methods for analyzing, preserving, and understanding cultural artifacts through digitization, textual analysis, 3D scanning, and data visualization. This paper examines the scope of DH, the technological tools employed, and their applications in the study of cultural artifacts. Additionally, it addresses ethical concerns inherent in digitizing and interpreting cultural heritage. Through case studies, this research highlights how DH transforms scholarly practices by enabling innovative methodologies and providing new insights into historical and cultural narratives while emphasizing the importance of ethical practices and equitable representation.
... From the 3D digital mesh of the complete artifacts, a designed algorithm extracted 3D models only of the perforations (all 3D models available at https:// zenodo.org/records/11124677). The digital-based methods available with the Artifact3-D software (available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/artifact3-d/) [22] were used to automatically and manually extract metric parameters. ...
... The majority of the artifacts (70%) fall in the range of 2-15 gr ( Fig 3A). The item's centre (the binding box, CoBB) and the centre of mass (CoM [22]) points are close, with an average distance of 0.8 mm ± 0.3 mm between one another ( Fig 3B). The ratio between the maximum length and maximum width, calculated based on the 3D binding box properties, shows a standard measure of 1.22 ± 0.14. ...
‘The wheel and axle’ revolutionized human technological history by transforming linear to rotary motion and causing parts of devices to move. While its ancient origins are commonly associated with the appearance of carts during the Bronze Age, we focus on much earlier wheel-shaped find–an exceptional assemblage of over a hundred perforated pebbles from the 12,000-year-old Natufian village of Nahal Ein-Gev II, Israel. We analyze the assemblage using 3D methodologies, incorporating novel study applications to both the pebbles and their perforations and explore the functional implications. We conclude that these items could have served as spindle whorls to spin fibres. In a cumulative evolutionary trend, they manifest early phases of the development of rotational technologies by laying the mechanical principle of the wheel and axle. All in all, it reflects on the technological innovations that played an important part in the Neolithization processes of the Southern Levant.
... Lithic edge angle variation can be described by qualitative (overall shape, profile, and intentional modification) or quantitative methods, for example, calculating edge curvature and length of working edge angle by applying various manual (Kuhn, 1990), experimental (Pargeter et al., 2023;Key and Lycett, 2015), computational (Schunk et al., 2023;Valletta et al., 2020), and microscopic or micro-geometric methods (Key et al., 2024). However, the present research argues that the manual method (including the physical and virtual goniometer) and microscopic methods have their limitations, which occurred because of the ambiguity in manual measurements, artefact positioning, number of measurement points and distance of these points and further it can be enhanced by human errors (Grosman et al., 2022). Therefore, the computational-based automatic measurement technique of edge angle variation analysis in a lithic assemblage is a great tool for dealing with the ambiguity of a large number of measurements and quantifying measurement data for further interpretations on various aspects of research problems (Grosman, 2016;Grosman et al., 2022). ...
... However, the present research argues that the manual method (including the physical and virtual goniometer) and microscopic methods have their limitations, which occurred because of the ambiguity in manual measurements, artefact positioning, number of measurement points and distance of these points and further it can be enhanced by human errors (Grosman et al., 2022). Therefore, the computational-based automatic measurement technique of edge angle variation analysis in a lithic assemblage is a great tool for dealing with the ambiguity of a large number of measurements and quantifying measurement data for further interpretations on various aspects of research problems (Grosman, 2016;Grosman et al., 2022). Here, the present research has applied the computational method to outline the working edge circumference on the 3D scans of lithic samples and automatic segmenting of the mean edge angle values which are further used for quantitative analysis and experimental interpretations. ...
... However, this procedure lacks the missing error calculations and fails to offer insights into potential local variability along the edge or on the two surfaces. Moreover, the use of manual selection of reference points on 3D surfaces defining the angle introduces ambiguity in their definition of variation (Grosman, 2016;Grosman et al., 2022). The present research has applied the computational method to measure the outline of working edge angle circumference on the 3D scans of lithic samples and automatic segmentation and calculation of the mean edge angle (Muller et al., 2024). ...
... This effort joins the efforts of additional groups, which, in the past few years, sought to develop various machine learning (ML) techniques applied with morphological features to automate the classifications of archeological remains and grapevine seeds [16][17][18] . More recently, Cervantes et al. proposed the classification of representative Vitis vinifera cultivars, conserved in the Spanish collection of IMIDRA, using methods of image analysis and optimized morphological approaches, based on seeds shape 19 . ...
This study investigates the morphological changes in grape pips resulting from various charring conditions. Employing high-resolution scanning combined with morphometric measurements for morphological analysis, we aimed to understand the effects of charring on grape pips. Our morphometric analysis demonstrated significant alterations in seed shape above 250 °C. The length–width ratio and the occurrence of cracks notably changed, providing a basis for assessing charring conditions. In addition, applying a machine learning classification method, we determined that accurate classification of grape varieties by the morphometric analysis method is feasible for seeds charred at up to 250 °C and 8 h. Integrating the morphometric changes and temperature ranges suitable for classification, we developed a sorting model for archaeological seeds. By projecting length–width ratios onto a curve calculated from controlled conditions, we estimated charring temperatures. Approximately 50% of archaeological seeds deviated from the model, indicating drastic charring conditions. This sorting model facilitates a stringent selection of seeds fit for classification, enhancing the accuracy of our machine learning-based methodology. In conclusion, combining machine learning with morphometric sorting enables the identification of charred grape seeds suitable for identification by the morphometric method. This comprehensive approach provides a valuable tool for future research for the identification of charred grape seeds found in archaeological contexts, enhancing our understanding of ancient viticulture practices and grape cultivation.
... Due to the high demand for analytical approaches, the publications of Artifact GeoMorph Toolbox3-D (AGMT3-D) by Herzlinger and Grosman [4] and Artifact3-D software by Grosman et al. [5] were created to add new possibilities for analyzing 3D models of stone artifacts. Even the use of neural networks to simulate knapping has been published by Orellana et al. [6]. ...
... We then pair up labels, if the calculated label for which the ground truth label has its maximal IoU also has the ground truth label as maximal IoU, so l g= l c ⇔ max l∈L C (IoU(l g , l)) = l c and max l∈L G (IoU(l c , l)) = l g . (5) This guarantees, that neither taking only one label nor taking a very fine segmentation result in high scores. Then we can get the correctness of our segmentation by adding up the intersections of each pair of correctly classified labels and dividing by the total number n of vertices of the mesh ...
Motivated by the question of understanding the roots of tool making by anatomically modern humans and coexisting Neanderthals in the Paleolithic, a number of shape classification methods have been tested on photographs and drawings of stone tools. Since drawings contain interpretation and photographs fool both human and computational methods by color and shadows on the surface, we propose an approach using 3D datasets as best means for analyzing shape, and rely on first open access repositories on lithic tools. The goal is to not only analyze shape on an artifact level, but allow a more detailed analysis of stone tools on a scar and ridge level. A Morse-Smale complex (MS complex) extracted from the triangular mesh of a 3D model is a reduced skeleton consisting of linked lines on the mesh. Discrete Morse theory makes it possible to obtain such a MS complex from a scalar function. Thus, we begin with Multi-Scale Integral Invariant filtering on the meshes of lithic artifacts, which provides curvature measures for ridges, which are convex, and scars, which are concave. The resulting values on the vertices can be used as our discrete Morse function and the skeleton we get is build up from lines that will coincide with the ridges and, implicitly, contains the scars as enclosed regions of those lines on the mesh. As this requires a few parameters, we provide a graphical user interface (GUI) to allow altering the predefined parameters to quickly find a good result. In addition, a stone tool may have areas that do not belong to the scar/ridge class. These can be masked and we use conforming MS complexes to ensure that the skeleton keeps these areas whole. Finally, results are shown on real and open access datasets. The source code and manually annotated ground truth for the evaluation are provided as Open Access with a Creative Commons license.
... We also acknowledge that researchers may not always have the artefacts physically available during analysis. Thus, it would be extremely beneficial to automate the scar vector identification process by developing algorithms that can not only segment individual scars (Grosman et al., 2022) but can further delineate the percussion axis. Another issue concerns scar count. ...
... Considerable attention in recent advancements of 3D lithic methods has focused on morphometric properties (e.g., Archer et al., 2021;Grosman et al., 2022;Herzlinger et al., 2017;Lycett and von Cramon-Taubadel, 2013). Following Clarkson et al. (2006) and Hunstiger (2016), we show here that there is also great potential to leverage 3D advancements to quantify technological variables such as core scar patterning. ...
In stone artefact studies, researchers often rely on qualitative classifications to describe flake scar arrangements on cores. While this approach provides a broad overview of core reduction patterns, its application can be ambiguous due to the three-dimensional complexities of core geometry and the subjective nature of qualitative classifications, making it challenging to objectively compare flake scar patterning across different analytical settings. In this study, we present a new approach to quantify one aspect of flake scar arrangement on cores: the three-dimensional orientation of core scar negatives. Using standardised digital and experimentally flintknapped cores, we demonstrate that statistical techniques from fabric analysis can quantitatively characterise the scar orientation profile of cores. Importantly, this method is able to reveal variations in the flake scar arrangements of informal cores, such as multiplatform cores. When applied to a sample of multiplatform cores from the Homo floresiensis type-site of Liang Bua in Indonesia, we identify differences in flake scar orientation between cores made by Homo floresiensis and those manufactured by modern humans who utilised the site after the disappearance of the extinct hominin. This finding suggests a possible divergence in stone knapping practices between the two hominin taxa at Liang Bua. Overall, our research provides a new quantitative approach to gain new insights into hominin technological behaviour through stone artefact analysis. It also highlights the potential of 3D analysis for advancing the field of archaeological lithic research.
... Scanning technology and advanced analysis share an interface; however, scanning is generally perceived as confined to the realm of digital documentation. In archaeology, 3D analyses form an integral part of advanced research, applied to several fields, such as in the study of ceramics (Harush and Grosman 2021;Karasik, Harush and Smilansky 2020), lithics (Caricola et al. 2018), hand axes (Herzlinger, Goren-Inbar and Grosman 2017), coins (Hess, MacDonald and Valach 2018), burial places (Mickleburgh, Stutz and Fokkens 2021) and small objects and artifacts ( Cerasoni et al. 2022;Grosman et al. 2022). These studies allow for a precise measurement of minor differences that are often imperceptible to the naked eye. ...
The grapevine (Vitis vinifera) is one of the most significant fruits in global economy, today as in the past. The international modern wine industry, traditional agriculture and wild populations encompass thousands of grapevine varieties, the differences between them often imperceptible to the naked eye and therefore, necessitating the application of digital technologies. This study aimed at establishing a methodology for analyzing grapevine pips using a 3D scanner, including an optimal protocol for removing the pips' tissue to improve the botanical identification of recent and ancient specimens. The study presents mechanical, chemical and biochemical methods used to prepare the pips for scanning, the sample including 1400 modern grapevine pips belonging to 91 varieties and 300 grape pips from archaeological sites. In addition, several methodological tests were conducted to assess the tool's sensitivity to positioning errors and possible morphological changes during natural ancient desiccation. Our study demonstrates the potential of this methodology for archaeological research and its implications for the wine industry.
... Taking edge angle measurements with any user-chosen coordinate oversimplifies the complex geometry of tool edges, as edge angle values change continuously between any two coordinates along the edge of the handaxe, as well as between a coordinate on the edge and one on the handaxe's surface. Valletta et al. 7 introduced a reliable 3D edge angle measurement that is available as a function in the Artifact3-D software 38 , addressing these issues of user-defined position and fixed depth of measurements. This method was developed with blades and backed blades in mind and is best suited to discrete portions of edges divided by a small number of ridges delineated by user-selected points along the edge. ...
... Here, we automate and make available a new toolkit of 3D computational metrics for quantifying handaxe edge geometry. These methods first involve loading a 3D model into the Artifact3-D program 38 and choosing an orientation, either an automatic position based on its geometric properties or a user-chosen position. All subsequent steps are conducted entirely automatically using custom MATLAB code developed for this present study 81 . ...
The edges of stone tools have significant technological and functional implications. The nature of these edges – their sharpness, whether they are concave or convex, and their asymmetry – reflect how they were made and how they could be used. Similarly, blunt portions of a tool’s perimeter hint at how they could have been grasped or hafted and in which directions force could be applied. However, due to the difficulty in accurately measuring the complex 3D geometry of tool edges with traditional methods, their attributes are often overlooked. When they are analyzed, they have traditionally been assessed with visual qualitative categories or unreliable physical measurements. We introduce new computational 3D methods for automatically and repeatably measuring key attributes of stone tool edges. These methods allow us to automatically identify the 3D perimeter of tools, segment this perimeter according to changes in edge angles, and measure these discrete edge segments with a range of metrics. We test this new computational toolkit on a large sample of 3D models of handaxes from the later Acheulean of the southern Levant. Despite these handaxes being otherwise technologically and morphologically similar, we find marked differences in the amount of knapped outline, edge angle, and the concavity of their edges. We find many handaxes possess blunt portions of perimeter, suitable for grasping, and some handaxes even possess more than one discrete sharp edge. Among our sample, sites with longer occupations and more diverse toolkits possessed handaxes with more diverse edges. Above all, this paper offers new methods for computing the complex 3D geometry of stone tool edges that could be applied to any number of artifact types. These methods are fully automated, allowing the analysis and visualization of entire assemblages.
... Трехмерное сканирование каменных артефактов проводилось по опубликованному протоколу (Колобова и др. 2019), визуализация трехмерных моделей выполнялась в программе Artufact 3D (Grosman et al. 2022). ...
The article is devoted to the reassessment of the Diring-Yuryakh assemblage in Central Yakutia. It is argued that the assemblage has no analogues among the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Northeast Asia. Archaeological materials from Diring-Yuryakh indicate the existence of an Early Paleolithic workshop with an original stone industry in the middle reaches of the Lena River, which in all likelihood should be dated to Marine-Isotope Stage 11 and is therefore considerably older than 300 kyr BP.