结合机器控制和熟练的操作员来帮助考古学

作者：Karina Lykke Lumholt
视频专家：Pamela Almeida

An area of about 10 hectares/25 acres is right now being excavated in Odense, Denmark, before being laid out for construction. Odense City Museums and their large team of archaeologists are responsible for researching, excavating, and preserving the prehistory of the area, and curator Jakob Bonde is leading the excavation.

“我们发现了一个现有村庄的一部分，我们可以追溯到公元1200年左右的中世纪”雅各布解释说。

在这个中世纪地点以南，考古学家很高兴找到一个更早的地点。从罗马铁器时代（公元前500年至公元400年）的火葬坟墓的埋葬场所。

The digging of search trenches commences an archaeological excavation to get a sideways (layered) view of the deposits. This establishes if there are archaeological objects or material in the area and places them in chronological order.

If archaeological finds are discovered on site after the initial examination, an excavator will meticulously remove the topsoil. Thomas Petersen from the company Fuglsanggård is specialised in using an excavator equipped with Leica iXE3 machine control for archaeological projects.

“大约四年前，我们开始与托马斯合作。他拥有这种设备对我们非常有帮助，因为当我们不必衡量所有内容时，这使我们的工作变得更加容易。他可以帮助我们阐明测试沟和我们将要挖掘的区域，当我们完成时，我们再次将所有内容弄清楚，” says Jakob.

It takes finesse to use an excavator for archaeology projects

The excavator carefully removes the topsoil, and if the archaeologists find something, the Leica GS12 GNSS antenna and the CS15 controller are used to digitally record the exact positions of the find and report it back to the museum. Wooden pegs are placed in the soil so the archaeologists can look for traces of houses, pits, wells and graves in the designated area.

“I am trained in spotting the post holes, urn graves, or other graves. I know what the archaeologists are looking for, and I can stop the excavator before digging into something important. It demands patience and sense in order not to dig too deep,托马斯·彼得森说。

托马斯（ThomasLeica Conx到MC1software on the in-cabin control panel. He uses the machine control solution to log all heights of the area with the excavator’s bucket and the function创建模型in MC1 to create a surface model on the fly. The advantage is that he knows exactly how much material to fill back and where, once the excavation is finished.

Logging of points to create a surface model.

托马斯使用新发布的MC1中的半自动功能当填充材料.

“它使使用单手操作的正确高度填充后材料更容易。我的风险没有足够的材料，我可以创造出比手动能够更光滑的表面，并且第一次得到正确的表面！”解释说托马斯。