Linking Scars: Topology-based Scar Detection and Graph Modeling of Paleolithic Artifacts in 3D

Abstract:

Motivated by the concept of combining the archaeological practice of creating lithic artifact drawings with the potential of 3D mesh data, our goal in this project is not only to analyze the shape at the artifact level, but also to enable a more detailed analysis of stone tools at the scar and ridge level. For this purpose, we combine the archaeological interpretation, typically represented in 2D, with its corresponding 3D data. To achieve this goal, we propose a workflow that utilizes 3D datasets as the best means for shape analysis of lithic artifacts, which relies on one of the first open access repositories of 3D scannned lithic tools.
In our four-step workflow, we start with a preprocessing in GigaMesh, followed by a scar segmentation using Morse theory-based algorithms, continue with a postprocessing and finally create a graph model-based representation of the lithic artifacts in 3D. This prototypical graph model can already be used to display and evaluate manual or parameterized operational sequences in 3D. The source code and the manually annotated ground truth data are available as open-access publications under a Creative Commons license.