These teaching resources have been created to encourage the reuse of digital archaeological data archived by SPARC, in accordance with the 'Reusability' FAIR principle.
These teaching materials are made available under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license.
This repository contains teaching materials designed to introduce university-level students to working with computed tomography (CT) data. It introduces terminology and metadata specific to CT scanning and data analysis and provides step-by-step instructions for four exercises that cover the basics of processing and interpreting CT data collected through the SPARC Project and/or at the MicroCT Imaging Consortium for Research and Outreach (MICRO) facility at the University of Arkansas.
Portions of this exercise are adapted from Kasten, M. (2020) Delving into the Boston Fingerprints Project Archive: A SPARC Teaching Resource. https://github.com/ropitz/sparc_teaching.
Please cite this exercise as Claxton, A.G., Wilson, M., Terhune, C. (2022) Exploring microCT Applications in Archaeology: A SPARC Teaching Resource. https://github.com/castuofa/sparc_microct
The use of computed tomography (CT) imaging in archaeological investigations has been an area of considerable growth in the last several decades. Archaeological applications of CT imaging can be broadly grouped into seven categories: digital autopsies of preserved human or animal remains, documentation of paleopathological conditions and/or trauma, virtually unfurling and reconstructing ancient scrolls or texts, examination of the contents of sealed vessels (e.g., ceramics or basketry), identification of raw materials used in artifact manufacture and/or the reconstruction of manufacturing techniques, archaeobotanical and/or microsedimentological analysis, and the documentation and verification of cultural heritage objects. You can learn more about the variety of archaeological applications of CT imaging here and here.
Many of these applications have specifically utilized micro-computed tomography (i.e., microCT) imaging, which enables the visualization of structures in much greater detail than clinical or industrial CT scanning. CT and microCT imaging are particularly valuable because these techniques allow for the three-dimensional (3D) examination of both the external and internal structure of an object without damaging the object itself.
- Understand what microCT data is and how to download and store this data
- Open and visualize microCT data
- Interpret microCT data
- Collect measurements from microCT data
- Generate 3D models from microCT data
- Understand how to download, visualize, and process microCT data
- Become familiar with free, open-source programs for visualizing and manipulating microCT data and 3D models
- Understand the range of applications of microCT in archaeological investigations
As you work through these exercises, we encourage you to take notes and/or screenshots of your progress. This could be as simple as a Microsoft Word document where you have pasted the screenshot or something more; that is up to you. After each exercise, you may want to reflect on the exercise and summarize your thoughts in a few sentences as a 'long caption' for your screenshot(s). This “guide” may be especially helpful if you are new to these methods or programs and hope to use them again in the future.
Should you identify any errors with this tutorial or have any problems, please feel free to reach out to us at micro@uark.edu.