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Nowadays, assessing geo-hazards in cultural heritage sites in most cases takes place after the hazard has occurred. Monitoring structural and ground deformation resulting from geo-hazards facilitates the early recognition of potential risks and encourages effective conservation planning. This paper presents an integrated ground deformation monitoring approach based on the combined use of satellite SAR data, campaign-based GPS/GNSS observations, and aerial images from UAVs within the Choirokoitia UNESCO World Heritage Site in Cyprus. The Neolithic settlement of Choirokoitia is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. The site is located on a steep hill, which makes it vulnerable to rock falls and landslides. As part of the PROTHEGO project, a series of field measurements were collected at the Choirokoitia site and compared against satellite SAR data to verify kinematic behavior of the broader area and to assist in monitoring potential geo-hazards over time. The results obtained indicate displacement rates of the order of 0.03 m/year. These results indicate that ground deformation should be monitored in the area surrounding the Choirokoitia using long-term, low-impact monitoring systems such as SAR images and UAV-based and geodetic techniques. The combination of such monitoring technologies can be compared to monitor and assess potential geo-hazards on archeological sites with increased accuracy.

Erosion of soils due to human activities such as deforestation, pastoralism, and agriculture is a problem that has been recognized since Antiquity. Greece, like much of the of the Mediterranean world, is particularly susceptible to soil loss due to the arid climate and steep, rocky terrain, and many previous studies have sought to date and attribute the aggradation of soil to human activity, climatic changes, or a combination of the two. This study uses near-shore sediment cores from Antikyra Bay in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, to understand the sources and timing of erosional events in the study area of the Kastrouli–Antikyra Bay Land and Sea Project. Sedimentological analysis and radiocarbon dating of foraminifera and twigs show that there are two major periods of soil aggradation in this record: the first occurred in the Hellenistic and/or Roman period (ca. 1900 – 2100 BP), and the second starts in the Ottoman Period (ca. 350 BP) and persists until present day. In addition to documentation of soil aggradation, two paleo-shorelines were identified during the geophysical survey. A local relative sea level curve constructed for this study suggests the shallower of the two is between ~7.7 and 8.7 thousand years old, while the deeper feature formed around 8.9 to 9.7 thousand years ago.

“Connected Worlds: the Caribbean, Origin of Modern World”. This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement Nº 823846. European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement Nº 823846 Peer reviewed

This dissertation will focus on several land use strategies utilized during the Late and Terminal Classic periods at the archaeological site of Actuncan, Belize (a Late Preclassic and Early Classic regional center), including terracing, water channeling, agricultural plots, and chich cobble mounds. Excavations in commoner settlement zone of the site exposed three terracing and water management system methods: 1) terraforming, in which earthen berms were created to facilitate water drainage, 2) low plastered walls utilized for water channeling, and 3) two small agricultural plot systems filled with a large amount of redeposited domestic trash. These features are representative of household-level land transformation, as well as localized land use based on microenvironments and specific social and political contexts. In addition, GIS flooding models indicate a number of linear cobble mounds to the east of the Actuncan site core, along the Mopan River floodplain, may have been used as a cacao orchard, thus creating an economic opportunity or tribute system that could have benefitted the entire community. Together, these systems reflect how the ancient Maya at Actuncan managed water and agricultural production based on site-level environmental knowledge, and the scale at which these technologies were administered. In addition, while the Late and Terminal Classic period was a time of elite loss of power at the site of Actuncan, the agricultural plot systems and chich cobble mounds created and utilized during these periods denote commoner endurance in the face of political turbulence.

There are many environments on Earth that are so remote that they are inhospitable to humans and conventional sensing equipment. Yet, these environments can hold information of ecological and cultural significance that cannot be gathered anywhere else. Current methods of gathering information in these environments give an important window, but utilizing modern sensors to capture 3D information can allow us to interpret existing data and understand the environments in new and unique ways. This thesis will demonstrate how 3D capture can improve data collection and interpretation in three separate remote environments. First, I will show how Synthetic Aperture Sonar on autonomous underwater vehicles paired with optimized feature detectors can improve target detection and seafloor recognition. Next, I will show how RGBD cameras, photogrammetry, and LIDAR can be used in isolated Guatemalan archaeological excavations to visualize and contextualize ancient sites in relation to each other and to our broader understanding of Mayan history. Finally, I will demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of RGBD cameras for fish stock assessment through detection and length and biomass measurement in open waters and in aquaculture.

This project examines the response of policymakers, rural people, and social scientists to the major economic and demographic changes transforming the rural United States after 1945. Farm land concentrated increasingly in fewer hands, competitive markets and low prices for farm products strained small farmers, and many farm jobs mechanized. Rural jobs beyond the farm, particularly in mining and timber, began to disappear as well. These changes were not necessarily new but were deeper and far more wrenching following World War II. The population loss, community decline, and unemployment they caused posed the more general question of rural America’s future. My project aims to understand not just how these changes were understood and addressed, but more importantly how policymakers, experts, and rural people envisioned the place of rural America in a changing society. Examining major and in some cases pathbreaking rural development initiatives in California, Missouri, and Georgia, my research ranges across the broad diversity of rural America to analyze the emergence of three distinct approaches to solving the rural crisis. One, focused primarily on what was referred to as “nonfarm” development, saw the era of the small farm as finished, and aimed to replace disappearing farm jobs with federal loans and grants that funded infrastructure projects, industrial development, and rural tourism. Another solution found its fullest expression in the land reform efforts of small, African American-led farm cooperatives, who blended calls for civil rights and economic justice in their attempt to build a cooperative farm economy. Finally, Mexican American farmworkers allied with activist lawyers to regulate California’s large farms and fight for collective bargaining rights. Taken together, these two efforts at farm reform suggested that rural America could be revived only through a dramatic reorganization of agriculture. Delving into the assumptions, legislative and administrative politics, and the federal and local power dynamics that shaped the practice of rural development, my project tells the story of a deepening rural crisis, and the effort to solve that crisis and in the process redefine rural America.

Sagruinen er lokalisert inntil planområdet i nordøst. Lokaliteten ligger i en ravinedal omtrent 50 meter sydvest for gbnr. 433/23, også kalt Fossen. Sagruket består av en sagtuftruin lokalisert nedenfor et mindre fossefall. Elven går fra innsjøen Heia og har utløp i Glomma ved Fetsund. Her ligger Fetsund lenser, et tømmersorteringsanlegg som var i drift fra 1861 – 1985 . Vegetasjonen består av blandingsskog av gran og løvtrær, med undervegetasjon av gress og mose. Lokaliteten er avgrenset av ravinen i nord, øst og syd, mens ravinen og elveleiet fortsetter mot vest. Tuften har to bevarte murer som er ca 1,40 m brede og opp til 1,50 m høye. Murene er i hovedsak bygget av stor bruddstein og står parallelt, orientert NØ – SV. Den sydlige muren er best bevart og er noe lavere og i østre ende. Den nordre muren er skadet og utrast i østre ende. Stein fra sagtuften ligger i elva og er spredt nedstrøms mot vest. Lokaliteten er avgrenset av ravinen og bergvegger i nord, øst og syd, og i vest av spredning av stein fra tuften hvor ravinen og elveleiet fortsetter.

This special issue of the journal Photography & Culture (volume 14, issue 3) calls for the development of research into the various local and global political circumstances that have influenced the absorption of historical photographs into the realm of digital heritage, alongside the study of the digital photographic heritagization practices triggered by this very process. Presenting case studies from Australia, Britain, Israel, Palestine, Russia and South Africa, it analyses how historical photographs, digital heritage, and cultural conflicts have become interlocked in multiple countries around the globe since the post-Cold War rising prevalence of digital technology, global interconnectedness, and liberal democracy. These related conditions, it is suggested, have informed the growing digital heritagization of historical photographs and the methods used for their digitization, safeguarding and dissemination. Therefore, as a whole, the special issue argues that the confluence of historical photographs and digital heritage must not be understood as a mere response to technological progress but as an articulation of politically-charged aspirations to capitalize on the common association of photographs with the past, to administer approaches to differing cultural values in a time of imposing liberal-democratic politics of consensus.

This report reviews the current state-of-the-art applied approaches on automated tools, services and workflows for extracting information from images of natural history specimens and their labels. We consider the potential for repurposing existing tools, including workflow management systems; and areas where more development is required. This paper was written as part of the SYNTHESYS+ project for software development teams and informatics teams working on new software-based approaches to improve mass digitisation of natural history specimens.

This article presents the first results obtained from the use of high-resolution images from the SAR-X sensor of the PAZ satellite platform. These are in result of the application of various radar image-treatment techniques, with which we wanted to carry out a non-invasive exploration of areas of the archaeological site of Clunia (Burgos, Spain). These areas were analyzed and contrasted with other sources from high-resolution multispectral images (TripleSat), or from digital surface models obtained from Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data from the National Plan for Aerial Orthophotography (PNOA), and treated with image enhancement functions (Relief Visualization Tools (RVT)). Moreover, they were compared with multispectral images created from the Infrared Red Blue (IRRB) data contained in the same LiDAR points.