Shawn M. Graham, PhD
Dr. Shawn Graham is a digital archaeologist and Full Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is also the Programme Coordinator for the MA specialization in Digital Humanities. He founded and edits the open access journal Epoiesen: A Journal for Creative Engagement in History and Archaeology.
Scroll down to find more about his:
research, publications, courses & how
this site was made.
Education
University of Reading | Ph.D. Archaeology | 2002
University of Reading | M.A. City of Rome | 1998
Wilfrid Laurier University | B.A. Hons Archaeology | 1997
Research
His current major research project, together with his collaborator Damien Huffer, uses neural networks and computer vision to explore the online trade in human remains (The Bone Trade Project). As part of the Computational Research in the Ancient Near East (CRANE) Project from the University of Toronto, he is exploring generative adversarial networks and archaeological photography. With Dr. Donna Yates of the University of Maastricht, he is exploring knowledge graph embedding models of the antiquities trade (The New Organigram Project). For more on his research, see his books and selected articles.
His work has been featured in WIRED Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Ottawa Citizen. He has frequently been interviewed concerning the human remains trade as new criminal cases come to light.
In 2019, he won the Archaeological Institute of America’s Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology for leading the creation of the ‘Open Digital Archaeology Textbook Environment’, O-DATE.
The X-Lab
The XLab – The Cultural Heritage Informatics Collaboratory – represents both a space and a series of relationships within and without the University. It is a kind of transdisciplinary ‘skunkworks’ for fostering encounters with and between cultural heritage and digital media and computation. As a skunkworks, or a space for trying non-traditional or imaginative new solutions, it aims to bring together tenacious tinkerers, who are willing to experiment, to wonder, to try, and to iterate – to try, try again. The XLab is led by Graham and Laura Banducci.
The XLab is always interested in collaborators.
Books
Graham has published several works that range from archaeological investigations to more philosophical ruminations on what it means to ‘fail gloriously’ in the digital humanities
Ex Figlinis
The growth of the city of Rome was dependent on its ability to exploit successfully the human and natural resources of its hinterland. Although this eventually expanded to incorporate the entire Mediterranean seaboard, the resources of the Tiber Valley originally nourished the city and continued to do so despite the growth in imports from elswhere in the Roman world. This study examines the way the Tiber Valley functioned in terms of its economic and social geography, as evidenced by the organisation and dynamics of the brick industry. Available via Humanities Commons.
Exploring Big Historical Data
Written with Ian Milligan and Scott Weingart (1st edition) and Kim Martin (2nd edition)
The Digital Humanities have arrived at a moment when digital Big Data is becoming more readily available, opening exciting new avenues of inquiry but also new challenges. This pioneering book describes and demonstrates the ways these data can be explored to construct cultural heritage knowledge, for research and in teaching and learning. It helps humanities scholars to grasp Big Data in order to do their work, whether that means understanding the underlying algorithms at work in search engines, or designing and using their own tools to process large amounts of information.Demonstrating what digital tools have to offer and also what ‘digital’ does to how we understand the past, the authors introduce the many different tools and developing approaches in Big Data for historical and humanistic scholarship, show how to use them, what to be wary of, and discuss the kinds of questions and new perspectives this new macroscopic perspective opens up. Find your closest copy via WorldCat