ORENGO Hector A.'s profile
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ORENGO Hector A.

  • Landscape Archaeology Research Group, Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology, Tarragona, Spain
  • Antiquity, Computational archaeology, Landscape archaeology, Paleoenvironment, Remote sensing, Spatial analysis
  • recommender

Recommendation:  1

Reviews:  0

Areas of expertise
I obtained my PhD on high mountain archaeology at the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC). Later on I held a postdoctoral fellowship to conduct fieldwork and GIS-based environmental modelling at the GEOLAB (CNRS, UMR 6042). In 2012 I moved to the UK to take a Nottingham Advance Research Fellowship at the Department of Archaeology where I directed the ‘Valentia Landscape Project’. In 2014 I obtained a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship at the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield where, together with Prof. Paul Halstead, I developed the project ‘HumanScapes’. I was a Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge working on the ERC-funded project TwoRains under the direction of Cameron Petrie from 2016 to 2018. I am now a Ramón y Cajal researcher and co-direct the Landscape Archaeology Research Group (GIAP) at ICAC. I currently work on a wide range of landscape-related topics. My research has mainly focused on the analysis of human-landscape dynamics in Mediterranean environments and beyond. I am also interested in theoretical approaches to the study of landscapes. During the last years I have developed extensive research on computational archaeology that includes but is not restricted to GIS and remote sensing techniques, field survey and site detection methods. I am currently working on the application of machine learning to archaeological research using cloud computing and big data sources (mostly multisource multitemporal satellite data, drone imagery and lidar).

Recommendation:  1

24 Jun 2021
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The strength of parthood ties. Modelling spatial units and fragmented objects with the TSAR method – Topological Study of Archaeological Refitting

A practical computational approach to stratigraphic analysis using conjoinable material culture.

Recommended by based on reviews by Robert Bischoff, Matthew Peeples and 1 anonymous reviewer

The paper by Plutniak [1] presents a new method that uses refitting to help interpret stratigraphy using the topological distribution of conjoinable material culture. This new method opens up new avenues to the archaeological use of network analysis but also to assess the integrity of interpreted excavation layers. Beyond its evident applicability to standard excavation practice, the paper presents a series of characteristics that exemplify archaeological publication best practices and, as someone more versed in computational than in refitting studies I would like to comment upon.

It was no easy task to find adequate reviewers for this paper as it combines techniques and expertise that are not commonly found together in individual researchers. However, Plutniak, with help from three reviewers, particularly M. Peeples, a leading figure in archaeological applications of network science, makes a considerable effort to be accessible to non-specialist archaeologists. The core Topological Study of Archaeological Refitting (TSAR) method is freely accessible as the R package archeofrag, which is available at the Comprehensive R Archive Network (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=archeofrag) that can be applied without the need to understand all its mathematical, graph theory and coding aspects. Beside these, an online interface including test data has been provided (https://analytics.huma-num.fr/Sebastien.Plutniak/archeofrag/), which aims to ease access to the method to those archaeologists inexperienced with R. Finally, supplementary material showing how to use the package and evaluating its potential through excellent examples is provided as both pdf and Rmw (Sweave) files. This is an important companion for the paper as it allows a better understanding of the methods presented in the paper and its practical application.

The author shows particular care in testing the potential and capabilities of the method. For example, a function is provided “frag.observer.failure” to test the robustness of the edge count method against the TSAR method, which is able to prove that TSAR can deal well with incomplete information. As a further step in this direction both simulated and real field-acquired data are used to test the method which further proves that archeofrag is not only able to quantitatively assess the mixture of excavated layers but to propose meaningful alternatives, which no doubt will add an increased methodological consistency and thoroughness to previous quantitative approaches to material refitting work, even when dealing with very complex stratigraphies.

All in all, this paper makes an important contribution to core archaeological practice through the use of innovative, reproducible and accessible computational methods. I fully endorse it for the conscious and solid methods it presents but also for its adherence to open publication practices. I hope that it can become of standard use in the reconstruction of excavated stratigraphical layers through conjoinable material culture.

 

[1] Plutniak, S. 2021. The Strength of Parthood Ties. Modelling Spatial Units and Fragmented Objects with the TSAR Method – Topological Study of Archaeological Refitting. OSF Preprints, q2e69, ver. 3 Peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/q2e69.

avatar

ORENGO Hector A.

  • Landscape Archaeology Research Group, Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology, Tarragona, Spain
  • Antiquity, Computational archaeology, Landscape archaeology, Paleoenvironment, Remote sensing, Spatial analysis
  • recommender

Recommendation:  1

Reviews:  0

Areas of expertise
I obtained my PhD on high mountain archaeology at the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC). Later on I held a postdoctoral fellowship to conduct fieldwork and GIS-based environmental modelling at the GEOLAB (CNRS, UMR 6042). In 2012 I moved to the UK to take a Nottingham Advance Research Fellowship at the Department of Archaeology where I directed the ‘Valentia Landscape Project’. In 2014 I obtained a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship at the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield where, together with Prof. Paul Halstead, I developed the project ‘HumanScapes’. I was a Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge working on the ERC-funded project TwoRains under the direction of Cameron Petrie from 2016 to 2018. I am now a Ramón y Cajal researcher and co-direct the Landscape Archaeology Research Group (GIAP) at ICAC. I currently work on a wide range of landscape-related topics. My research has mainly focused on the analysis of human-landscape dynamics in Mediterranean environments and beyond. I am also interested in theoretical approaches to the study of landscapes. During the last years I have developed extensive research on computational archaeology that includes but is not restricted to GIS and remote sensing techniques, field survey and site detection methods. I am currently working on the application of machine learning to archaeological research using cloud computing and big data sources (mostly multisource multitemporal satellite data, drone imagery and lidar).