Institute of Archaeology, Mount Scopus, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
PLoS One. 2022 Jun 16;17(6):e0268401. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268401. eCollection 2022.
The study of artifacts is fundamental to archaeological research. The features of individual artifacts are recorded, analyzed, and compared within and between contextual assemblages. Here we present and make available for academic-use Artifact3-D, a new software package comprised of a suite of analysis and documentation procedures for archaeological artifacts. We introduce it here, alongside real archaeological case studies to demonstrate its utility. Artifact3-D equips its users with a range of computational functions for accurate measurements, including orthogonal distances, surface area, volume, CoM, edge angles, asymmetry, and scar attributes. Metrics and figures for each of these measurements are easily exported for the purposes of further analysis and illustration. We test these functions on a range of real archaeological case studies pertaining to tool functionality, technological organization, manufacturing traditions, knapping techniques, and knapper skill. Here we focus on lithic artifacts, but the Artifact3-D software can be used on any artifact type to address the needs of modern archaeology. Computational methods are increasingly becoming entwined in the excavation, documentation, analysis, database creation, and publication of archaeological research. Artifact3-D offers functions to address every stage of this workflow. It equips the user with the requisite toolkit for archaeological research that is accurate, objective, repeatable and efficient. This program will help archaeological research deal with the abundant material found during excavations and will open new horizons in research trajectories.
对人工制品的研究是考古学研究的基础。记录、分析和比较个体人工制品的特征，在上下文组合内和组合之间进行。在这里，我们介绍并提供学术使用的 Artifact3-D，这是一个新的软件包，由一套考古人工制品的分析和记录程序组成。我们在这里介绍它，并结合真实的考古案例研究来展示其用途。Artifact3-D 为其用户提供了一系列用于准确测量的计算功能，包括正交距离、表面积、体积、质心、边缘角度、不对称性和疤痕属性。这些测量的指标和图形可以轻松导出，用于进一步分析和说明。我们在一系列与工具功能、技术组织、制造传统、敲击技术和敲击者技能相关的真实考古案例研究中测试这些功能。在这里，我们专注于石器，但 Artifact3-D 软件可以用于任何类型的人工制品，以满足现代考古学的需求。计算方法越来越多地与考古研究的挖掘、记录、分析、数据库创建和出版交织在一起。Artifact3-D 提供了满足该工作流程每个阶段的功能。它为用户提供了进行考古研究所需的准确、客观、可重复和高效的工具包。该程序将帮助考古研究处理挖掘过程中发现的大量材料，并为研究轨迹开辟新的视野。
