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Historic Site (historic + site)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Earth and Environmental Science63%

Selected Abstracts

Detection of a low-relief 18th-century British siege trench using LiDAR vegetation penetration capabilities at Fort Beauséjour,Fort Cumberland National Historic Site, Canada

GEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 5 2009
Koreen Millard
Airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), a remote sensing data collection technique, has many applications in the field of archaeology, including aiding in the planning of field campaigns, mapping features beneath forest canopy, and providing an overview of broad, continuous features that may be indistinguishable on the ground. LiDAR was used to create a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) in a heavily vegetated area at Fort Beauséjour,Fort Cumberland National Historic Site, Canada. Previously undiscovered archaeological features were mapped that were related to the siege of the fort in 1755. Features that could not be distinguished on the ground or through aerial photography were identified by overlaying hillshades of the DEM created with artificial illumination from various angles. LiDAR provides accurate digital topographic models with the additional benefit of mapping vertical surfaces in accurate detail below the forest canopy. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Geophysical indicators of culturally emplaced soils and sediments

GEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 8 2002
Rinita A. Dalan
Archaeologists dealing with earthen forms must distinguish those constructed by humans from those with a natural origin. Geophysical techniques can help identify culturally loaded soils and sediments. We suggest that intrinsic changes in geophysical properties, due to cultural loading, can serve as fingerprints in determining whether a mound or other earthen form is natural or culturally constructed. Culturally emplaced soils might be identified through anomalous values in geophysical properties or through unusual spatial or stratigraphic complexity. The identification of this "lumpiness" in geophysical properties may involve geophysical techniques quite different from those employed in traditional archaeogeophysical surveys. Experiments at three prehistoric mound sites (the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Effigy Mounds National Monument, and the Hopeton Earthwork) illustrate a number of these techniques including studies of the anisotropy (directionality) of geophysical properties, seismic Rayleigh (surface) waves, and magnetic susceptibility. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Archaeological prospecting at the Double Ditch State Historic Site, North Dakota, USA

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROSPECTION, Issue 1 2008
Kenneth L. KvammeArticle first published online: 14 FEB 200
Abstract A four-year programme of remote sensing at the Double Ditch State Historic Site, a fortified earthlodge village in the Great Plains of North Dakota, USA, demonstrates the importance of combined prospecting methods for understanding the multidimensional nature of complex settlements. Aerial survey from a powered parachute acquired high-resolution digital colour and thermal infrared imagery. The former distinguishes houses, borrow pits and ditches from middens and fill areas by changes in vegetation; the latter does the same through temperature variations that also highlight substantial village deposits and century-old excavations. Magnetic gradiometry reveals two previously unknown fortification systems that vastly increase the settlement's area and projected population to perhaps 2000 individuals. Vast numbers of food storage pits that supported that population are also indicated. Vertical soundings and area surveys of magnetic susceptibility aid in the understanding of storage pit magnetism and anthropogenic soil mounding and removal. A high-resolution digital model of topography documents surface expressions caused by ditches, houses, borrow pits and mounds; when combined with overlays of geophysical data understanding of remote sensing responses is improved and relationships between large mounds with village defenses are made clear. Ground-penetrating radar gives insights into mounded midden interior forms and yields details about house interior components, while electrical resistance results improve definition of middens, other depositional areas, houses and borrow pits. This multisensor remote sensing programme reduced excavation costs by allowing a wide variety of archaeological features of interest to be targeted accurately. Excavations confirmed anomaly identifications and established a chronology that documents late fifteenth century origins to an ultimate abandonment about AD 1782. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Robotic total station for microtopographic mapping: an example from the Northern Great Plains

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROSPECTION, Issue 2 2006
Kenneth L. Kvamme
Abstract Past human activities in cultural landscapes are often expressed by subtle variations in surface topography that reflect buried archaeological features. When seen from the air under low sunlight angles, resultant ,shadow marks' form a cornerstone of site detection in aerial archaeology. Past attempts to quantify and map such variations across large archaeological landscapes have resorted to aerial photogrammetry, electronic total stations, air- and ground-based lidar, and kinematic global positioning systems. The most commonly used surveying instrument is the total station, but its slow rate of data acquisition makes it poorly suited for collecting vast amounts of elevation data over large areas, although it is often used for that task. A robotic total station, examined here, is a relatively new technology that provides a rapid survey solution. It requires only a single person to operate the total station by radio linkage from a control pad affixed to a wheeled reflector rod. As the rod is rolled over the landscape it is automatically tracked, and measurements of surface topography may be acquired to subcentimetre accuracy continuously, at a rate of one measurement per second. A case study from the Double Ditch State Historic Site in the Great Plains of North Dakota, a fortified earthlodge village with culturally significant surface expressions, exemplifies this potential. The loci of prehistoric houses, borrow pits, fortification ditches, middens and defensive mounds are clearly revealed in the topographic mapping. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Introduction to historic house museums

MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL, Issue 2 2001
Giovanni Pinna
In November 1997, a major conference entitled Abitare la storia: Le dimore storiche-museo (Inhabiting History: Historical House Museums) was held in Genoa, the city of many palaces. On this occasion, the historic house museum, a rather particular type of museum, was extensively discussed for the very first time. The specific nature and values of such museums were highlighted. Over forty experts, who are responsible for palaces and more modest residences, came to Genoa for the conference. They debated aspects of restoration, security, teaching and communication. The conference participants took the opportunity to express their wish for the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to set up an international committee more specifically dedicated to historic house museums. They asked ICOM Italia, which was also present at the conference, to support their recommendation for the creation of the new committee, and this was done in 1998. Giovanni Pinna is the chairman of this newly created International Committee for Historic House Museums. He is president of the ICOM Italian Committee and also president of the ICOM International Committee for Museology of Historic Sites. A palaeontologist by training, he directed the Museum of Natural History in Milan from 1981 to 1996. He has published some sixty books and articles on various topics in the domain of theoretical museology as well as on the history and functions of museum institutions. His books include Museo: Storia e funzioni di una macchina culturale dal cinquecento a oggi (1980) and Fondamenti terici per un Museo di Storia Naturale (1997). [source]

Archaeological site distribution by geomorphic setting in the southern lower Cuyahoga River Valley, northeastern Ohio: Initial observations from a GIS database

GEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 8 2004
Andrew Bauer
In this study, we compiled unpublished archival documentation of archaeological site locations from the southern part of the Cuyahoga River Valley in northeastern Ohio, USA, registered at the State of Ohio Historic Preservation Office into a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database. Using digitized soil shapefiles to generate a geomorphic data layer, we assessed the spatial and temporal distribution of 79 known archaeological sites by landform association. This digital compilation indicates that Woodland period, Late Prehistoric, and Historic sites occur in most geomorphic settings along the river valley. In contrast, Paleoindian and Archaic sites only occur on Wisconsinan cut terraces and in upland interfluve settings, indicating that most of these documented sites are in primary contexts and have not been reworked. We discuss the distribution of archaeological sites in the study region as a function of various factors, including cultural activities, taphonomic processes, landform development, and the nature and extent of the original archaeological surveys. Observed spatial patterns of known sites clearly reflect local geomorphological controls; artifactual contexts from the earlier prehistoric periods are underrepresented in the database. We conclude that additional site surveys, as well as the excavation and documentation of new sites in this part of Ohio, are required to understand local prehistoric economies and to ascertain patterns of culturally mediated land use. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Using the past to shape the future: new concepts for a historic site

MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2001
Ruth J. Abram
Ruth J. Abram is the founder and president of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City. An activist turned historian, Ms Abram holds graduate degrees in social welfare and American history, and has done pioneering work in the use of history for social issues. Her landmark work at the Tenement Museum has been widely covered in the media in the United States, including the New York Times, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and the Public Broadcasting System series on the history of New York. Her work indeed sheds light on history from the point of view of those who are often left out of the history books. [source]

A moving planar mirror based approach for cultural reconstruction

COMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 3-4 2004
Kyung Ho Jang
Abstract Modelling from images is a cost-effective means of obtaining virtual cultural heritage models. These models can be effectively constructed from classical Structure from Motion algorithm. However, it's too difficult to reconstruct whole scenes using SFM method since general oriental historic sites contain a very complex shapes and brilliant colours. To overcome this difficulty, the current paper proposes a new reconstruction method based on a moving planar mirror. We devise the mirror posture instead of scene itself as a cue for reconstructing the geometry. That implies that the geometric cues are inserted into the scene by compulsion. With this method, we can obtain the geometrical details regardless of the scene complexity. For this purpose, we first capture image sequences through the moving mirror containing the interested scene, and then calibrate the camera through the mirror's posture. Since the calibration results are still inaccurate due to the detection error, the camera pose is revised using frame-correspondence of the corner points that are easily obtained using the initial camera posture. Finally, 3D information is computed from a set of calibrated image sequences. We validate our approach with a set of experiments on some cultural heritage objects. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

In the frame: investigating the use of mobile phone photography in museums

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NONPROFIT & VOLUNTARY SECTOR MARKETING, Issue 4 2007
Debra LeightonArticle first published online: 17 AUG 200
The ubiquitous use of mobile phone technology to capture photographic images has rapidly become an accepted feature of our social and cultural lifestyle. From the capture of photographic images in a social setting to the evening news reports of the 7/7 suicide bombings that led with phone video footage taken by a member of the public, mobile phone photography has rapidly become embedded in everyday life and presents a new set of challenges for marketers in all sectors. Within the heritage sector, mobile phone photography presents new methods for visitors to interact with and interpret historic sites, buildings and artefacts. This paper explores the use of mobile phone photography within the museum setting through an empirical study conducted at the National Football Museum in Preston, UK. It discusses the role of mobile phone photography in the visitor experience, in formal and informal learning provision, in stimulating the motivation to learn and in encouraging social interaction with visitor groups. The paper concludes with the identification of potential marketing opportunities for the museum and wider heritage sector. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]