Price Mellon Research Fellow
2016
2017

Peter Cobb

Kowalski Family Teaching Specialist for Digital Archaeology, Classical Studies and the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials

Peter J. Cobb is an Anatolian archaeologist and a ceramics specialist.  He recently completed his PhD in the University of Pennsylvania’s Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW) program, where he was also a Kolb Fellow.  His dissertation studied the distribution of Bronze Age ceramics in western Turkey.  He now serves as a teaching specialist in the Penn Museum's Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials.  Peter applies digital techniques to his analysis of ancient ceramics, focusing on the 3d scanning of ceramic sherds and their subsequent automated morphometric analysis. 

 

Peter brings a digital humanities approach to his archaeological fieldwork in Turkey, emphasizing the direct digital recording of archaeological evidence during excavation and surface survey with the goal of publishing these data open access online in order to enable reuse and reevaluation at the highest level of detail.  Peter was the co-editor of the complete online publication of the excavation of Kenan Tepe, a prehistoric site located along the Tigris river in southeastern Turkey.  With more data available at higher accuracies, it will be possible to apply data science approaches to help address archaeological questions and thus improve our understanding of the human past.