The study of historical artifacts is being changed by AI, which is helping to find and study items from the past. AI programs can look at satellite pictures, ground-penetrating radar data, and 3D scans to find places to dig and rebuild what the environment was like in the past. Projects like the one run by Sarah Parcak’s GlobalXplorer use machine learning to find small changes in the landscape that point to buried buildings.
AI can find things like underground roads or walls that aren’t visible to the naked eye by looking at high-resolution satellite images. This has led to the finding of sites that were not known before and has helped us learn more about the cultures that lived in the past. AI is also being used to help translate old languages and texts, which gives us new information about the past. Natural language processing algorithms can translate and explain writings that have stumped scholars for a long time. This helps us understand the beliefs, practices, and daily lives of people from long ago.
AI tools are also being used to make accurate 3D models of archaeological sites and objects. Researchers can study and share their results with a level of detail and accuracy that has never been seen before thanks to these digital models. Digital records made possible by this technology not only help to protect historical places, but it also makes it easier to share information with the public and other researchers around the world.
Because of these improvements, archaeologists can make better choices and find things faster, which makes the past more clear. AI is being used in archaeology to open up a new era of exploration where the mysteries of the past can be found faster and more correctly than ever before.