by Lawrence B. Conyers
GPR at Laetoli, Tanzania: Micro GPR for mapping hominid footprints
Very high frequency ground-penetrating radar (GPR) reflection data were collected and processed at Laetoli Site S, to connect an ancient hominid pathway that was uncovered in two excavations conducted in 2016. These footprints have been dated to about 3.6 million years ago and are likely those of Australopithecus afarensis. Profiles were collected 5 cm apart…
3 responses to “GPR at Laetoli, Tanzania: Micro GPR for mapping hominid footprints”
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I enjoyed reading this! I’m curious what procedure was used for filtering out fractures and other non-footprint depressions. Does that mean by interpretation? The AI interpretation comparison is very interesting and I would love to know more about the procedure used. Was it a CNN deep learning model, or something else? I looked for papers by Luca Piroddi and Augusto Montisci but did not find anything about interpreting GPR.
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Thanks Eileen for commenting. Yes, Luca and Augusto did this kind of a teat of concept. We developed models (in the paper) and then just had the AI tools look for similarities in the geometry of the reflections. It got tangled up in cracks and little faults, as you can see with some of the very long linear features that it picked. And there were also some coupling changes that produced features that “looked like” prints. But I think that a 95% success rate is OK as a first pass, and then let the human brain take over. They have not moved on to other projects, so if I decide to move forward I am going to have to find people willing to spend more time with this. I don’t have the time, so we will have to leave this as a “test of concept” for now.
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I’m happy to see the paper published. It was nice to have met you in Laetoli. Instead of leaving it as a test of concept, it would be good to collect more data to strengthen the findings and explore potential patterns more thoroughly. Expanding the dataset could also help address some of the open questions we discussed and provide a stronger basis for future research.
Let me know if you’re interested in discussing possible next steps or collaborations.
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