UCL Institute of Archaeology

Institute student research was again showcased in the recent UCL Graduate School Research Poster Competition with success for Stuart Eve and Emmy Bocaege.

Stuart Eve came top of the competition for Arts & Humanities, Laws and Social & Historical Sciences students with his poster entitled 'Dead Men's Eyes'. 

Stuart's research uses augmented and mixed reality techniques to explore a new approach to embodied GIS and the image from his research shows a view of Bodmin Moor, augmented with 3D reconstructions of Bronze Age roundhouses, only visible through the binoculars.

• "The title of the poster (Dead Men's Eyes) and inspiration for the image comes from an M.R. James short story in which a man finds a pair of old binoculars that when looked through show a view into a grisly past.  Augmented Reality is quite a hard concept to understand unless you see it in action, therefore I felt it was vital to augment the poster itself".

To this end, it is possible to download a special application to a smartphone and when  the phone's camera is pointed at the poster the binoculars become animated, moving around the poster, revealing more of the Bronze Age landscape.

Emmy Bocaege was a runner-up in the same competition for her poster illustrating the application of a newly developed three-dimensional technique to study developmental features on human teeth (perikymata) using dentitions from the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey.

• "Perikymata can provide an insight into the amount of variation in dental development in modern humans and can be used to identify occurrences of childhood growth disruptions (linear enamel hypoplasia)". 

Emmy's PhD project uses this information alongside skeletal growth data and detailed archaeological information on settlement and living conditions in order to give an insight into childhood experiences at Çatalhöyük.

The UCL Graduate School Research Poster Competition offers graduate students an opportunity to meet and discuss the innovative research they are undertaking. 293 entries were received for the 2011/12 competition and congratulations are given to Stuart and Emmy on their success!