Archaeologist’s Corner

In the past three months, the Exeter Archaeology Club has been quite busy appointing new leadership, preparing on-campus activities, and planning for long-term, larger events. This September, a new board of co-heads was appointed, comprised of Jasper Chen ‘24, Hunter Ryerson ‘24, Rajiv Raval ‘24, and Charlie Scales ‘24. Together, with the help of faculty advisor and experienced archaeologist Dr. Troy Samuels, the board has crafted an agenda spanning the duration of their collective tenure. First, Archaeology Club is undertaking the management of the Latin study artifacts. At the onset of winter term, the club will sort, categorize, and record all of the materials currently displayed in the Latin Study atrium. This initiative is in coordination with current campus-wide efforts to reform Exeter’s museum and artifact storage practices (driven by the Senior Project of Clara Peng ‘24). Looking forward to 2024, Archaeology Club is working to create off-campus events, including potential visits to actual archaeology digs and museums throughout New England.

Meanwhile, the broader world of archaeology has certainly been eventful these past few months. After a gradual post-COVID reopening, dig sites across the globe are active once more. However, archaeology isn’t returning unchanged. In fact, it is one of the leading mediums for experimentation with new technologies: artificial intelligence has begun its first ventures into the world of archaeology. A student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln won 40,000 dollars of prize money training an AI to identify unique ink patterns in carbonized Vesuvian scrolls, allowing him to translate otherwise unreadable, scorched manuscripts. Meanwhile, an archaeology team in Israel has employed AI translation software to translate Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets with high levels of accuracy, specifically performing thorough translation of Akkadian inscriptions to English. Mesopotamian dialects are extremely difficult to translate due to their complex makeup: the translator must first translate the actual characters before examining the highly specific context in which words are featured. Furthermore, scholars who can translate Mesopotamian themselves are scarce, and much of the surviving Mesopotamian writing is in fragments, so this adoption of this accurate, expedient process of translation via AI is groundbreaking for Mesopotamian archaeology. Similarly, in Australia, AI technologies are being increasingly applied to analyze raw archaeological data. One example is Australian indigenous rock art, which is being interpreted and categorized by AI with high levels of accuracy. As archaeology is growing and evolving with the wind of AI in its sails, it seems more and more data and knowledge will be uncovered at quickening rates.