Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability - CCAS

Cyber-archaeology is revealing new information about extinct Neanderthals based on skeletal remains excavated decades ago. A recent paper published in Nature Communications titled “3D virtual reconstruction of the Kebara 2 Neanderthal thorax” changes our view of how Neanderthals stood, moved and breathed. The paper is co-authored by University of the Basque Country’s Asier Gómez-Olivencia, Bar Ilan University’s Alon Barash, and Ono Academic College’s Ella Been. "The 3-D model of the Neanderthal rib cage compared with that of modern man "made us realize things we couldn’t see or measure before,” said Been." New insights include the idea that Neanderthals had a more efficient diaphragm and more horizontally turned ribs than modern humans do as well as the fact that contrary to popular belief, Neanderthals did not walk hunched over. Read more here

3-D model of Neanderthal rib cage busts myth of ‘hunched-over cavemen’ High-tech visualization techniques on Israeli skeleton give new window into lives of our early human cousins, who survived extreme conditions but went extinct some 30,000 years ago

Located on the coast of northwestern Israel lies Tel Dor, an ancient archaeological site that is the most southern Phoenician site found in the Levant to date. A 3D model of the site was created to detail the Tel's fascinating features and give a better look at how all of the different parts of the city were connected to each other and in what ways rising sea levels have submerged past infrastructure. This model of an archaeological site at Tel Dor, Israel, was created for the Israel 3D Land and Sea Project 2017. The site was photographed by Griffin Drone Photography, Dominique E. Meyer, and Yitzhak Marmelstein, and later processed using Agisoft Photoscan by Anthony Tamberino and Dominique Meyer. Profs. Assaf Yasur-Landau, Ilan Sharon, and Thomas E. Levy were principle investigators on the project. The UCSD Center for Cyber-Archaeology & Sustainability, the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology, the Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative, the University of Haifa, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Israel Antiquities Authority all played a part in making the project happen. The Israel 3D Land and Sea Project 2017 was generously funded by Marian Scheuer Sofaer and Abraham Sofaer of Palo Alto, CA.

Tel Dor (Biblical Port), Israel. - 3D model by A. Tamberino - Sketchfab This model of an archaeological site at Tel Dor, Israel, was created for The Israel 3D Land and Sea Project 2017. Anthony Tamberino¹˒²˒³; Dominique E. Meyer¹˒²˒⁴; Assaf Yasur-Landau³˒⁵; Ilan Sharon⁶; Yitzhak Marmelstein⁷; Thomas E. Levy¹˒²˒³. ¹University of California San Di...

The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan, has recently made available a new online database of photographs of archaeological and cultural heritage sites from its archival collection. These photographs vividly document human and natural impacts to sites over time. ACOR’s Library Photographic Archive Project is made possible through a 2016 American Overseas Research Centers grant from the U.S. Department of Education (Title VI). Through the four-year course of this project, 30,000 images and associated metadata from ACOR’s collection will be digitized and put online. Over 10,000 images are already available online for research, teaching, publication and general interest. Read more here: http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2018/11/Sharing-Moments-in-Time
See the collection here: https://acor.digitalrelab.com/

An Early Bronze Age cemetery at Fifa, Jordan, taken in 1998 and 2016. Note the increased density of looters' pits in the 2016 aerial image.

Rising groundwater levels are threatening ancient temple sites along the Nile, a consequence of decades of flood irrigation of surrounding fields following construction of the Aswan Dam in 1971. At Kom Ombo, 400 miles south of Cairo, water has penetrated the sandstone foundations and is damaging hieroglyphs and artifacts. Read about efforts to drain the water and divert it back to the Nile

The Newest Curse of the Mummy: Bad Drainage Engineers and archaeologists working together to save an ancient riverside temple in Egypt have discovered rare treasures, including a sphinx.

Catalyst project Co-PI and UC Merced Professor Nicola Lercari and post-doc Arianna Campiani and their colleague Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo (National Autonomous University of Mexico) recently published a paper describing their digital documentation work at the World Heritage site of Palenque, Mexico. The site can be explored virtually with the Palenque Core point cloud using the UC Merced WAVE. See the paper here:

www.researchgate.net

Dr. Arianna Campiana, Catalyst project post-doctoral scholar at UC Merced, and her colleagues have published a new digital collection at the UC San Diego Library! Titled "Data from: Spatial Analysis and Heritage Conservation: Leveraging 3-D Data and GIS for Monitoring Çatalhöyük Earthen Architecture", this collection includes a mixed remote sensing dataset made of terrestrial laser scanning point clouds, point cloud comparison data, structure from motion-generated polygonal meshes, and related textures and metadata. Data was recorded at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey under the Çatalhöyük Digital Preservation Project carried out in 2012-2017 by scholars and students from UC Merced and Cardiff University. The goal of the Çatalhöyük Digital Preservation Project was to document current site conditions to comply with UNESCO site management guidelines for conservation and to assess deterioration of its mud-brick architecture through time via 3-D data comparison and geo spatial methods. See the collection here:

Data from: Spatial Analysis and Heritage Conse... This collection includes the remote sensing dataset recorded at Çatalhöyük, Turkey, between 2012-2017. The deterioration of earthen architecture through time was assessed by comparing these 3-D da...

A new digital collection titled "Data from: A Glimpse through Time and Space: Visualizing Social Memory and History-making at Çatalhöyük" is now online at the UC San Diego Library thanks to the efforts of our Catalyst Project Co-PI Professor Nicola Lercari and his team at UC Merced! This collection includes a set of 3-D models and Unity 3D game engine-ready asset packages that reconstruct virtually the ‘Shrine’ 10 sequence at the at-risk Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Archaeological research was conducted by Gesualdo Busacca, Arianna Campiani, and Nicola Lercari in 2016-2018. The UC Merced team worked with Ho Jung Yoo and her colleagues at UC San Diego Library's Research Data Curation Program to publish the collection. See the collection here:

Data from: A Glimpse through Time and Space: V... This collection includes 3-D models, derived 3-D renders, Unity 3D asset packages, a Win64 3-D app, and related metadata that reconstruct both spatially and temporally (4-D) the ‘Shrine’ 10 sequen...

Professor Stella Demesticha (center), University of Cyprus, visited Qualcomm Institute's SunCAVE on Thursday June 5 with (from left) Dr. Jurgen Schulze, Professor Tom Levy, Katrina Cantu, and Dr. Margie Burton. The tour of UCSD's large-scale scientific visualization environments also included the WAVE, the VROOM, and the Library CAVEkiosk. Professor Demesticha is a marine archaeologist whose on-going investigations of the 4th-century BC Mazotos shipwreck off the coast of Cyprus highlight the use of photogrammetry and other cyber-archaeology tools for reconstructing and visualizing cultural heritage that is otherwise inaccessible to the public. Professor Demesticha's visit was sponsored by the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology. Photo by Tony Tamberino.

Please join the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology and the Center for Hellenic Studies for a free Global Forum public lecture by Professor Stella Domesticha of the University of Cyprus on Wednesday June 6 at 5:00 pm at the Great Hall, UCSD campus. The lecture is titled "Mazotos, Cyprus: a 4th century BC shipwreck site by the book?" Professor Domesticha's research highlights the use of cyber-archaeology tools in the reconstruction of Classical vessel cargos.
Registration and information at

Global Forum - Mazotos, Cyprus: a 4th century BC shipwreck site by the book? Eleven years ago, in 2007, a shipwreck site was reported to Cypriot authorities by local divers. Found off the island’s south coast, it consisted of an amphora assemblage, almost in the shape of a ship, lying on a flat sandy seabed. This was what remained of the ship’s cargo, wine from the islan...

The 4th century BCE Mazotos shipwreck off the coast of Cyprus has been recently explored and documented using cyber-archaeology tools, allowing virtual reconstruction of amphorae lying on the sea bottom. Learn more at the upcoming Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology public lecture by Professor Stella Domesticha of the University of Cyprus, Wednesday June 6 at 5:00 pm at the Great Hall, UCSD campus.

Mary Shepperson reports on the condition of the Bronze Age site of Mari in Syria. The ancient city was one of the first archaeological sites to be occupied by Islamic State. Now new photos are revealing the fate of this important site as archaeologists continue to count the cultural cost of Isis. Read the article here
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/19/destruction-at-the-ancient-site-of-mari-in-syria

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The UC San Diego Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability at the Qualcomm Institute and the UC San Diego Library are hosting a free workshop May 15 – 16, 2018 that will explore the technical aspects and research applications of declassified, Cold War-era CORONA satellite imagery. In operation from 1960-1972, the CORONA satellite program collected over 860,000 images across the entire globe, all of which are now publicly available through the USGS. These extraordinary, high-resolution images preserve a unique picture of the world as it appeared a half-century ago, and have become a critical research tool in archaeology, environmental science, geography and other disciplines. The workshop is led by Jesse Casana, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. The workshop will take place in the Geisel Library.


Workshop: Acquisition, Processing, and Analysis of Declassified CORONA Satellite Imagery



Funded by the Corona Atlas project itself, this will be a great opportunity to learn about this dataset and the methods that the instructors have developed to analyze it. Please see the attached flyer and distribute to any of your staff and students that might be interested.