Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Modern Excavating

Technology continues to expand our capacity to explore the past. Given the current instability in Afghanistan, nearly every western archaeological excavation has been halted. This, however, has not disrupted work in the area: archaeologist have turned to Google Earth to discover and catalogue a number of sites. Satellite imagery remains effective at revealing transport routes and other human traces, but Google Earth makes it that much more accessible.


Google Earth’s 3D map tool has been used to reconstruct a number of ancient cities. Whereas the Forma Urbis Romae and the Plastico di Roma Antica required countless hours to render Rome’s finery, digital versions take much less time and provide greater detail.


The practice of naming children according to the availability of domain names seems absurd, especially with the impending expansion of Domain Names. Nevertheless, the list of the most unfortunate names, e.g., Justin Case and Hazel Nutt, doesn’t contain many of these web based monikers (yet). Unlike these new-fangled proper nouns, researchers claim to have dated the English words “I”, “we”, “two”, and “three” back tens of thousands of years using computer models.

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