TSA at CAA2012

The highlight of my year so far was being invited to give a paper at the 40th Computer Applications in Archaeology conference hosted by the University Southampton .  Firstly, I should thank James Miles for inviting me,  my parents for funding it, and the University for Southampton  for putting on a tremendous conference; it has restored my faith in academic archaeology.

This is the abstract of my paper;

Over twenty years ago, I bought a computer and CAD software, only to discover that it took hours to print a shaded view of an Iron Age roundhouse, and besides, sticking a cone on top of a cylinder did nothing to advance my understanding of the archaeology of prehistoric timber buildings. So I returned to the basic data and to working on paper in plan, section, and elevation.

Prehistoric structures in Britain are largely evidenced by postholes, often in such numbers, that most archaeologists are content to pick out circles and rectangles on which to base their report, and ignore the rest of the dataset.  However, thinking about structures in terms of ’shape’ has led to simplistic models and inappropriate cross-cultural comparisons.

My research into understanding postholes has concentrated on reverse engineering timber structures from the known position of their posts, which ultimately leads to a consideration of how timbers were joined together.  Initially, I worked back from the medieval period, but more recently, I have worked forward from LBK buildings, which are the starting point for the range of technologies that both require, and support, complex built environments.

Modelling the relationship between an archaeological ground plan and the original superstructure requires a detailed consideration of tools, carpentry, building technology, and trees. It leads to ideas like offset jointing, reversed assembly, and importance of ties, unfamiliar concepts to most archaeologists.  However, with such ideas comes a basic set of principles that both explain the spatial distribution of archaeological features, and are a guide to the use of CAD to reconstruct and understand prehistoric architecture on a timber-by-timber basis.

Understanding the basics of posthole archaeology, and the technological culture it represents, unlocks the potential of CAD systems a research tool, making it possible to reconstruct buildings from LBK longhouses to Woodhenge in virtual reality.

As far as I could tell it when in the room, - nobody threw anything or walked out, and more generally delegates  coped fairly well with my enthusiasm for my  subject.  Encapsulating twenty years of research in 20mins was never going to be easy.
The quality and range of papers was excellent, and in some ways quite overwhelming, illustrating the application of IT to wide range of research going on throughout the world.
In stark contrast to my own recent experiences of academic archaeology, I was very impressed with all aspects of Southampton University, particularly by their ability to create research groups across departments, utilising knowledge and technology from a range of disciplines.
Particularly  gratifying was the emphasis on evidence based archaeology, everyone I met among this gathering of international archaeologists seemed to share my view that making up cosmologies, beliefs, and rituals was not an appropriate methodology for explaining complex archaeological datasets.
So, once again I would like to thank the staff and students at the University of Southampton  for their hospitality, and for what it is worth, I would heartily  recommend it as a place to study archaeology.