Evaluating contemporary digital technologies for the reconstruction and mapping of archaeological resources

This PhD proposes to systematically analyse the potential of high resolution multispectral and hyperspectral datasets, collected from both unmanned and spaceborne systems, to investigate their potential to predict near sub-surface sediment architectures of river valley systems, and to utilise this data for the management of heritage assets. Such an innovative and timely approach to the evaluation of purposively collected multi/hyper data to identify these subsurface architectures has the capacity to greatly increase our understanding of the distribution of the increasingly threatened archaeological resources within these complex floodplain sedimentary systems. Arguably, the richest component of the archaeological resource within the UK is housed within the alluvial sediments of river systems, due to a combination of the resource rich palaeoenvironment and the preserving capacity of water logged anaerobic sediments that have infilled these valley systems. Over the last 15 years, geoarchaeological investigation has increasingly utilised remote sensed topographic data sets (e.g. lidar) to investigate complex geomorphological areas, but there has been little corresponding application of other remote sensed data sets, such as multi/hyper spectral bands, to identify geomorphological features and sub-surface sediment architectures to manage cultural assets. The proposed PhD will directly address all three of the SEAHA strands and has direct industry application through assessing the hyper/multi spectral data sets and integrating them into the cultural asset management 'tool kits' of heritage and archaeological professionals.

Research questions
1 How effective are small-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) and spaceborne multi/hyper spectral data sets at defining archaeological features (ditches/pits, banks, etc) and geomorphological features (e.g. palaeochannels, gravel terraces, etc) within the valley environment?
2 Do the spectral responses of multi/hyper spectral data show variation related to the near surface sediment architectures of the geomorphological or archaeological features?
3 Can sUAS and spaceborne multi/hyper spectral remotely sensed data sets be used to model the sub-surface sediment conditions, and preservation capacity, of the alluvial sediment sequence by taking advantage of observations from multiple spatial scales?
4 Can sUAS and spaceborne approaches be used, synergistically with an understanding of near sub- surface sediment architectures, to form an holistic interpretation of heritage assets; essential for cultural resource management.

1. Academic beneficiaries: The CDT will develop scientific and engineering excellence in the domain of cultural heritage scientific and engineering research and more fundamentally in the enabling domains of imaging and sensing, visualisation, modelling, computational analysis and digital technology. While the CDT focusses on the complex materials and environments of the arts, heritage and archaeology, it will be broadly influential due to the range of novel methods and approaches to be developed in collaboration with the Diamond Light Source and the National Physical Laboratory. The establishment of a student and alumni-managed 'Heritage Science Research Network', will enable CDT's cross-disciplinarity to bridge EPSRC subject boundaries impacting scholarly research in the arts and humanities and social sciences.
2. Heritage beneficiaries: The CDT will have a transformational effect on public heritage institutions by dovetailing 'Data creation', 'Data to knowledge' and 'Knowledge to enterprise' research strands. The resulting advances in understanding, interpretation, conservation, presentation, management, communication, visualisation of heritage, and improved visitor participation and engagement will lead to significantly improved public service and value creation in this sector. This will sustainably boost the cultural heritage tourism sector which requires significant heritage science capacity to maintain the UK's cultural assets, i.e. museum, library, archive and gallery collections and historic buildings. 15 globally leading heritage Partner institutions (both national and international) will contribute to dissemination through established and new heritage networks e.g. the EU Heritage Portal (http://www.heritageportal.eu/).
3. Industry, particularly three crucial sectors: (i) sensors and instrumentation, which underpin a wide range of industrial activity despite the small size (UK Sales £3Bn), and are a key enabling technology for successful economic growth: 70% of the revenues of FTSE 100 companies (sales of £120Bn) are in sectors that are highly dependent on instrumentation; (ii) creative industries, increasingly vital to the UK with 2M employees in creative jobs and the sector contributing £60Bn a year (7.3%) to the UK economy. Over the past decade, the creative sector has grown at twice the rate of the economy as a whole; (iii) heritage tourism sector contributing £7.4Bn p.a. to the UK economy and supporting 466,000 equivalent jobs. Without the CDT, this crucially important economy sector will experience an unsustainable loss of capacity. The impact will be achieved in collaboration with our Partners: Electronics, Sensors, Photonics KTN, TIGA and Qi3, a technology commercialisation, business development and knowledge transfer company.
4. Public: The intensive public engagement activities are built into CDT including dissemination and engagement events at heritage institutions, popular science conferences and fora, e.g. Cheltenham Science Festival, European Science Open Forum and British Science Festival, as well as events organised by the HEIs' Beacon projects (e.g. UCL Bright Club). Cross-cohort encouragement to engage in these events will realise the substantial potential for the CDT to popularise science and engineering. More widely, visitors and users of heritage will benefit from the development of new and more engaging presentation tools, and pervasive and mobile computing.
5. Policy: SEAHA will engage with policy makers, by contributing evidence to policies and research agendas (the PI is actively involved in the EU JPI Cultural Heritage and Global Change, in which she advised on the development of the EU Cultural Heritage Research Agenda endorsed on 22/03/2013) and develop policy briefings for governmental and parliamentary bodies. The CDT is also a strategically important development of the AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme ensuring continued global UK leadership in the SEAHA domain.