UndertheseaXD/RandomForestLithicClassifier

Collection of data and models for predicting heat treatment strategies in south African archeological sites ## Applying Machine Learning in Archeology This project was focused on understanding how different heat treatment strategies emerged around 162,000. The goal of this project was to predict the heat treatment type of different silcrete materials that were used to make stone tool artifacts from the Archeological site Pinnacle Point in Mossel Baai South Africa. Understanding how and when different heat treatment strategies for raw materials emerged can help build a clearer picture of complex tool manufacturing in the Middle Stone Age of Africa. ## Main Questions * What are the favored heat treatment approaches in each layer and over time? * Do we see a trend in preferred methods? * Is there an increase in the complexity of the heat treatment strategy from the early layers to the later? ## Study development To start this project the first step was to define the hypothesized heat treatment strategies from this era and site, which are the following, Unheated, Direct, Ember, and Sandbath. * Unheated is just the raw silcrete which is sometimes processed before heat treatment, Unheated silcrete is a very poor material for making stone tools due to its makeup. * Direct is the process of putting the raw material into an active fire and applying high heat directly to the nodule, this approach is the least complex and applies heat very quickly which leads to the nodules having large cracks and often being poor quality for making stone tools. * Ember is the method where the fire is allowed to burn down into embers where the nodule of silcrete is then buried in the embers, this allows for a less extreme application of heat which leads to fewer cracks and better quality material for making stone tools. * The Sandbath method is the most complex requiring complex and sustained fuel over multiple hours, this method leads to very high-quality material but requires multiple hours of time commitment and a large amount of resources to complete. These 3 heating strategies increase in co …