Carleton University

Shawn M. Graham Digital Archaeologist

Full Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University. Programme Coordinator for the MA in Digital Humanities. Founder and editor of Epoiesen: A Journal for Creative Engagement in History and Archaeology.

Dr. Shawn Graham
01

Education

2002

University of Reading

Ph.D. Archaeology

1998

University of Reading

M.A. City of Rome

1997

Wilfrid Laurier University

B.A. Hons Archaeology

02

Research & Administration

Currently the Coordinator for the MA Specialization in Digital Humanities. The DH Specialization received a $CAD 2.2m gift to implement the StudioDH initiative.

His research with collaborator Damien Huffer used neural networks and computer vision to explore the online trade in human remains (The Bone Trade Project). As part of the CRANE Project from the University of Toronto, he's explored 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). He has collaborated with Justin Walsh (Chapman University) and Alice Gorman on the International Space Station Archaeological Project, designing the analytical tools to conduct the first archaeology in space.

In 2019, he won the Archaeological Institute of America's Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology for leading the creation of O-DATE.

His work has been featured in the wider media:

WIRED Washington Post NY Times Ottawa Citizen
X-Lab Logo

The X-Lab

The Cultural Heritage Informatics Collaboratory represents both a space and a series of relationships within and without the University. Created thanks to a Canadian Foundation for Innovation Grant.

Led by Graham and Laura Banducci, it's a transdisciplinary 'skunkworks' for fostering encounters with and between cultural heritage and digital media and computation.

03

Books

Practical Necromancy for Beginners

Practical Necromancy for Beginners

Explores ways of surfacing the ghosts that lurk in AI technology. The most useful thing we can do with LLMs is to break them, push them, prod them.

Download Free
These Were People Once

These Were People Once

Written with Damien Huffer. A study of the 'bone trade' using methods drawn from the digital humanities to examine how people buy and sell human remains online.

Find on WorldCat
An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology

An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology

The use of computation in archaeology is a kind of magic, a way of heightening the archaeological imagination. Explores this spectrum in Roman archaeology.

Find on WorldCat
Failing Gloriously

Failing Gloriously

"Please, you gotta help me. I've nuked the university." Documents Graham's odyssey through the digital humanities against the backdrop of the 21st-century university.

Download PDF
Exploring Big Historical Data

Exploring Big Historical Data

Written with Ian Milligan, Scott Weingart, and Kim Martin. A pioneering book describing ways data can be explored to construct cultural heritage knowledge.

Find on WorldCat
Ex Figlinis

Ex Figlinis

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.

Read on Humanities Commons
04

Selected Articles

Reputation laundering and museum collections: patterns, priorities, provenance, and hidden crime

DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2023.2284740

Relationship prediction in a knowledge graph embedding model of the illicit antiquities trade

DOI: 10.1017/aap.2023.1

Reproducibility, Replicability, and REvisiting the Insta-Dead and the Human Remains Trade

DOI: 10.11141/ia.55.11
Dura Europos

Listening to Dura Europos: An Experiment in Archaeological Image Sonification

Shawn Graham and Jaime Simons. Internet Archaeology 56. Man standing in doorway of block B2 at Dura Europos. Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery.

The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE) on the ISS

DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/qmf73

05

Courses

Teaching cycles through the following courses. HIST5706a is offered every other year; HIST3814o is offered in the early summer term. Teaching is anchored in research and commitments to public history and digital humanities programmes.

HIST1900c

The History of the Internet

A broad survey that takes in a lot of the prehistory of the Internet as well.

Digital History Internet History
HIST3000a

Introduction to Digital Archaeology

Asynchronous online course exposing students to digital archaeological research through the study of a local cemetery's gravestones.

Digital Archaeology Online
HIST3814o

Crafting Digital History

Asynchronous online course meant to equip the student with digital literacies for research.

Digital Literacy Research Methods
HIST4916a

DH + Museums

An exploration of digital humanities methods for small museums.

Digital Humanities Museums