The Graduate program “Digital Heritage and Landscape Archaeology” will make full usage of the instrumentation and IT facilities of the newly established (at the Archaeological Research Unit of the Dept. of History and Archaeology) Lab of Digital Humanities GeoInformatics (DigHumanities GeoInfo Lab). The Lab is dealing with the application of cutting-edge technological aspects of Landscape Archaeology, Environmental Archaeology, Digital History, Monument Monitoring, and Cultural Heritage Risk Assessment and it is involved in projects within the domains of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Geoinformatics (Geophysical Prospection, Satellite Remote Sensing, Aerial Photography, and Photogrammetry), computational and statistical methods, 3D reconstructions, machine learning, and AI, etc. Research of the Lab expands on an international level with emphasis on Cyprus, E. Mediterranean, and the Balkans. Beyond providing hands-on experience and expert tools to students and professionals, the Lab is conducting high-level research and provision of services, which are supported by a number of high-tech instrumentation and computer facilities.

1. A Ground Penetrating Radar (Sensors&Software – Noggin Plus) for stratigraphic mapping of the subsurface. The unit consists of a cart and antennas of 250MHz, which will be able to scan large sections of archaeological sites and provide information of the subsurface targets up to a depth of ~3-4m below the ground surface.
2. A soil resistance meter (Geoscan Research RM85-Advanced Professional RM85/PA20 Resistivity meter) for the mapping of the subsurface soil resistance up to a depth of ~ 2-5 meters. The method can be used to map the upper strata of archaeological and historical sites with a range of multiplexed arrays.
3. Two Fluxgate Gradiometers G601 (Bartington Ltd) to be used for the extensive mapping of archaeological sites. Sensors will be handheld units (for terrains that do not allow arrays of multiple sensors) but it is expected to be able to be expanded in the future to provide multiple array configurations.
4. A double frequency magnetic susceptibility meter (Bartington 2B) for the laboratory measurements of the magnetic susceptibility of soil samples.
5. A quadcopter Drone (UAV) with a high-resolution camera
6. Two GNSS - Differential GPS systems (base station and rover).
7. Software for statistical processing, geophysical processing, image analysis processing, Geographical Information Systems software, mapping software, etc.

The particular infrastructure is expected to increase gradually and form one of the very specialized centers that are dealing with high-quality research in the broad spectrum of Digital Humanities. In the meantime, the available instrumentation will be sufficient to get students to be involved in:

1) the mapping of archaeological sites in a rural and urban environment (both in Cyprus and abroad),

2) the creation of a Digital Library of geophysical signatures of archaeological underground targets and

3) the processing of geophysical measurements with new approaches (using Deep Learning/Machine Learning in combination with satellite imagery and geographic information systems - GIS).  

The hands-on training of students with high-tech instrumentation and software and their involvement in actual research fieldwork projects will be one of the strongholds of the particular graduate program, which aims to create a new generation of practitioners and trained personnel, who will have a better understanding of the potential and limitations of the methods and their way of application.

Except the support of the DigHumanities GeoInfo Lab, the Graduate program “Digital Heritage and Landscape Archaeology” will also benefit from the instrumentation and the infrastructure of the rest of the Laboratory units of the Archaeological Research Unit, such as the
ArtLandS Lab - Artefact & Landscape Studies Laboratory and the M.A.RE.Lab - Maritime Archaeological Research Laboratory, as the coordinators of both Labs (Prof. Athanasios Vionis and Prof Stella Demesticha accordingly), participate in the organization and implementation of the graduate program.