Information for Students and Researchers
A mission of the Museum of Stone Tools is to provide a platform to promote stone tools research to those with an interest in archaeology, from primary school and university students to life-long learners.
Map Locations
The map feature gives a location for each artefact in the Museum. In most cases, the artefacts portrayed in the models are from legacy collections made in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the precise find-spots are no longer known. In this case, locations are approximate and picked randomly within the general region listed for the artefact, or from the region where artefacts of that type are known to occur.
Artefacts from well-known sites are given an accurate location only when that information is already available through publications or websites.
Lectures, Presentations, and Tutorials
The majority of the 3D models are Open Access for use in schools and universities. The dedicated URL for a model can be used to embed it into various formats for live rotation. The URL is given in the artefact description under 'Pedestal Link'.
Alternatively, the Auto Rotate option can be combined with screen capture to make a video file for embedding into Powerpoint or similar software. Static screenshots of an artefact can be made using the Screen Capture tool. Note that the model will be need to be opened in a new browser tab using the Pedestal Link for the Screen Capture function to work.
The Measuring tools available for each model provide a powerful platform for tutorials. Students can use the models to collect and interrogate empirical data from stone artefacts from the archaeological record. Student-generated data can be the basis for forays into simple statistics and discussions around archaeologists’ use of typological categories to structure data.
Artificial Intelligence
All writing and editing for the Museum of Stone Tools was done by Professor Mark W. Moore from primary sources. AI was not used to write or edit any of the Museum's content.
Research Archiving
We encourage researchers to submit their 3D stone tool models for linking to publications (e.g., as Supplementary Online information) or to provide a public archive of 3D datasets. These virtual assemblages are hosted in a collection on Pedestal, with individual models linked to the Museum of Stone Tools where they can be discovered by students and other researchers. Links are provided in the Information for each model to the relevant research publication or thesis, and we can tailor the annotations and descriptions to suit the research focus. We encourage licensing the models as Open Access.
First Nations Peoples
First Nations people may want to preserve a 3D archive of artefacts and objects, and we can provide dedicated collections for this purpose on Pedestal. The models can be linked on First Nations websites for use in education and outreach and can serve as a record of objects returned to country. We would like to link to these objects on the Museum of Stone Tools, although this is not a requirement. We can restrict access to models and collections archived on Pedestal, as appropriate.