• New computer predictive model useful in

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Thu Mar 17 22:30:46 2022
    New computer predictive model useful in identifying ancient hunter-
    gatherer sites

    Date:
    March 17, 2022
    Source:
    Simon Fraser University
    Summary:
    Researchers looking to identify some of the most difficult 'finds'
    in archaeology --including sites used by nomadic hunter-gatherer
    communities--are tapping technology to help in the search.



    FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers looking to identify some of the most difficult 'finds'
    in archaeology -- including sites used by nomadic hunter-gatherer
    communities - - are tapping technology to help in the search.


    ========================================================================== Archaeologists at the Max Planck Institute and Simon Fraser University
    are gaining new insights from a computer predictive model that can assess
    the likelihood that landscapes contain such well-sought sites. Their
    work is newly published in the journal PLOS One.

    "Preserving archaeological sites from destruction ensures that history
    is not lost and is especially important for communities that did not
    use written records; but before sites can be protected and studied,
    they must first be found," says SFU archaeology PhD student Rob Rondeau
    and interim director of SFU's Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

    Chris Carleton, now of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
    developed the Locally-Adaptive Model of Archaeological Potential (LAMAP)
    -- a predictive model that considers distributions of values for landscape variables around known sites.

    LAMAP uses information from the landscape data to estimate the
    archaeological potential of land that has not been examined by
    archaeologists. Carleton successfully demonstrated the method on large, permanently occupied sites in Belize and Turkey.

    Rondeau, an experienced underwater archaeologist, connected with
    Carleton at the suggestion of SFU archaeology professor Mark Collard,
    who supervised Carleton while he was a PhD student and SFU post-doctoral fellow.

    Rondeau's interest is finding ancient sites on submerged landscapes off
    the B.C. coast -- those occupied when sea levels were much lower than
    today. Their collaboration will play a major role in helping him to
    identify underwater the campsites of hunter-gatherers in the distant past.

    Carleton and Rondeau tested LAMAP on the Tanana Valley in Alaska -- with
    its rich record of hunter-gatherer sites stretching back to the last
    Ice Age, 14,500 years ago. They "trained" the model with data about the landscape around 90 known sites, randomly selected from the State of
    Alaska's Heritage Database.

    The pair predicted which parts of the landscape had the highest potential
    for producing more sites, and then returned to the database to evaluate
    their predictions. Areas that LAMAP identified as high potential proved
    to contain many of the remaining sites in the database, confirming that
    LAMAP was able to predict preferred campsite areas that may have been
    occupied by hunter- gatherers only for a few days or weeks.

    Significant computing power was needed to undertake the systematic
    comparison of millions of data points from the 7,000-square-kilometrere
    study area.

    Rondeau travelled to Alaska in 2019 to experience the landscape and will
    next apply what has been learned to the deep waters off the B.C. coast.


    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Simon_Fraser_University. Original
    written by Melissa Shaw. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Rob Rondeau, W. Christopher Carleton, Mark Collard, Jonathan
    Driver. Does
    the Locally-Adaptive Model of Archaeological Potential (LAMAP)
    work for hunter-gatherer sites? A test using data from the Tanana
    Valley, Alaska.

    PLOS ONE, 2022; 17 (3): e0265597 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265597 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220317163625.htm

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