Funding opportunity number P24AS00178 2024 preservation technology and training PTT grants are administered by the national center for preservation technology and training ncptt the national park…

Funding opportunity number P24AS00178 2024 preservation technology and training PTT grants are administered by the national center for preservation technology and training ncptt the national park services innovation center for the preservation community. The 2024 PTT grants are intended to create better tools better materials and better approaches to conserving buildings landscapes and cultural resources. The analysis and interpretation of historic potsherds is a centrally important component of historical archaeological research and standardized typologies of historic ceramics have been developed for decades noel hume 1970. Such typologies include pottery types that circulated both globally and more locally within colonial contexts and their successor states in asia europe the americas and africa over the past 500 years. While the characteristics chronologies and production histories of such types are increasingly well known mastering these typologies takes years of training and experience creating real bottlenecks in the rapid and accurate analysis of ceramic assemblages from historic sites. Sherdid will offer a solution to this dilemma. Applying state of the art computer vision and machine learning technologies sherdid is a smart phone APP designed to aid in the rapid identification of historic potsherds. This APP is designed to be deployed in the field and in the lab aiding in a range of sherd collection and analysis strategies. Sherdid will not replace traditional ceramic analysis by trained specialists. However we believe this APP will support more rapid analysis of pottery assemblages identifying individual sherds to various confidence levels flagging artifacts for further study by specialists and providing preliminary dates for entire assemblages. Funding from the national park service will support the first phase in the development of sherdid creating the machine learning model and the webbased application. We are also in the process of applying for matching campus funding to develop sherdid into an APP for apple IOS and android smartphones.