00:00.16 archpodnet All right welcome to the show. Everyone Paul is not joining me today because he is still in Iraq as I'm recording this I think he'll be back next week as I'm recording this so he'll probably be on the recording two weeks from now. So our next episode hopefully. Because we do have another couple interviews coming up and I'm really excited to talk to him about his research methodologies and and how things went in his fieldboard project in Iraq in the meantime we have an interview. With a gentleman doing research in archeology and robotics and artificial intelligence and all kinds of stuff as I mentioned in the introduction. So and I'm going to butcher your name even though you just told me again, but Daniel Kindervaio welcome to the show all right? So you are. 00:42.30 Daniel Carvalho Thank you very much and thank you for anything on on your show. 00:49.13 archpodnet Ah, thank you appreciate it so you are cock talking to us from lisbon Portugal and you're currently doing a ph d in archeology and prehistory with the I'll let you say it centro day. Um I'm going to say it anyway. Centralro day Archelogica day un university dad day lizboa. 01:06.46 Daniel Carvalho Yes, just this. 01:08.59 archpodnet We'll we'll call it that. So first let's talk about your background in archeology. What has led you to where you're at right now seeking a Ph D in archeology and prehistory. 01:17.85 Daniel Carvalho Okay, thank you very much about the opportunity that you gave me I Love your podcast so I wanted to be a part of it too and my journey to archeology is is a little complex because I wanted to go and. 01:26.25 archpodnet Thank you. 01:37.00 Daniel Carvalho In the first place to robotics and in it all led to the same place fortunately and on my ph d I got the opportunity to to make what I wanted to make from the beginning ah that it was a robot that could do archaeology. 01:37.25 archpodnet So. 01:57.00 Daniel Carvalho Um, how I got here and it it was through theory of archaeology I began to study howcesualism has impacted portuguese archaeology on my bachelor degree. And but then I shifted to another period of time I wanted to know about cabinets of curiosities and eighteenth century archeological thought if we can say that in that way. 02:22.87 archpodnet So. 02:32.60 Daniel Carvalho And then in my Ph D I I thought to myself. Okay, now it's the time to do what I really want to do so and I got to robotics and archaeology and fused it with theory and to produce a robot that could could make. Archeological theory. 02:53.88 archpodnet So That's really interesting and I'm wondering how you even propose that kind of an Ph D to ah to an academic program. So Let me flip the question around again. So I asked you how you came to archeology. Well how did you.? How did you come to robotics and all that because there's very few archaeology departments out there. They're going to have a ah robotics department at the same time so you must be working with either some other roboticists or some other robotics departments. But what about your own expertise Are you looking to build this kind of thing or are you working with other people to. Construct something and and work with these fields in order to use them in archeology. 03:32.10 Daniel Carvalho Um I always worked by myself and on my it was my obie from since I remember I'm I'm doing robots little robots ah things that can move things that. 03:36.66 archpodnet Okay. 03:43.29 archpodnet Nice. 03:51.48 Daniel Carvalho Can move other things and and my interest now is is to to elevate them to another plane. The plane of theory and artificial intelligence. So I'm not currently working. 04:05.48 archpodnet Um. 04:10.11 Daniel Carvalho With roboticists I'm fortunately fortunately working with archaeologists with um backgrounds that are similar to robotics ah computer Science Statistics and. But I'm building it on my on my own The failures will be only mine and and I think it's interesting to to an archaeologist to do the robot. Even if it. If even if I'm not a roboticist and I'm for sure aren't and it's It's interesting for me to to fail and to invent something I've always done it in this way I have. Then a lot of failures and prototypes. But I think that is the way to create something new and so I'm comfortable with that. 05:12.54 archpodnet Did you seek out this program. The program that you're at I noticed there's a program in Lisbon and a program in Barcelona as well that you're affiliated with did you seek these out because of their connections with technology so it would help you do this or did you have. Or is this just nearby inconvenient and you're able to do what you want to do? yeah. 05:34.33 Daniel Carvalho I Think both and both can both centers of archaeology give me different ways to produce this kind of of work and at lisbon I have people that. 05:49.25 archpodnet E. 05:54.10 Daniel Carvalho Help me a lot with archaeological theory. Even if they are not many because in Portugal we still lack a lot of research on archaeological theory in my opinion and and in Barcelona we have. Ah, very good school of computer applications to archaeology. So for today was fortunate enough to have been accepted in a program where I could study. Ah, the 2 ways that I thought. Were the best to achieve my goal. 06:34.90 archpodnet Um, okay, okay, that's awesome I like that So let's talk a little about what about what you're what you're doing right now then um how let's see. I'm trying I'm trying to phrase this question in a way that you know gets to like what what the heart of what you're doing is right now. So you're working on a Ph D. You're not probably I mean probably a byproduct is yes, we're looking at Robots. We'll talk about exactly what form these robots take and what they will do. But yes, you're you're trying to produce a. Ah, body of work that produces a robot that quote does archeology but for your actual Ph D like what what kind of question are you trying to answer is it can robots be developed that can do archeology or is it something is it something different I'm just trying to figure out what your your actual Ph D Topic is. 07:24.79 Daniel Carvalho Okay, that that is an is is interesting question and I havehobe asked me that and my main goal and the main question of the Ph D is and can robots do archeology. 07:41.87 archpodnet Okay. 07:44.54 Daniel Carvalho Um, but I'm sincerely thinking that I can that that the answer is yes so I'm moving from that to how can robots do archeology and fusing them. 07:56.69 archpodnet No. 08:03.34 Daniel Carvalho The answer was to build an actual robot and by other words and only theory could not build this Ph D I had to demonstrate with an actual and physical robot that. He it could be possible to do archaeology um these these is very problematic because in the first. The first task is to determine What is archae and even human archaeologists entirely Sure. Of what it is and but even with the definition we have to think very deeply on how we work and in what we work and why we work it and. Theory of Archeology hinders here. So I'm link at the moment a kind of brain that could do basic tasks that we do. This is not entirely new in some fields we have. 09:04.36 archpodnet Okay. 09:21.63 Daniel Carvalho For example, automatic typologies. Ah we ah potured fragments in the identification but I wanted to go a step further and I think this is why I I I may. 09:23.13 archpodnet Yeah. 09:40.37 Daniel Carvalho To do the program that I am currently on is that not only to identify not only to search but to analyze by itself and then produce an argument. 09:59.22 archpodnet Okay. 09:59.27 Daniel Carvalho That is my goal that is the the goal of the brain that I'm building to produce some kind of theory maybe not high tier theory I'm thinking about maybe. Argument construction not theories, not very long theories or very complex theories but maybe illogical arguments and even so only that would would be. 10:28.50 archpodnet You know. 10:36.77 Daniel Carvalho Fantastic to archeology re opinion it would help us a lot. 10:37.38 archpodnet Yeah, indeed. Okay I've got a number of questions for you. But I think this is going to be I'm going to do some shorter segments for this podcast just so our listeners are aware. And I mean the reason is I'm trying to be respectful of of your time is very late in the evening for you and but I think this is fantastic and to be honest I'd rather have a slightly shorter episode get to the meat of what we're trying to do here and then. You know as you I mean I would love to follow this to be honest and as you go through your Ph D research have you, you know, come back on and say hey we found this out or you know you decided to do this and it would just be really interesting to follow this This journey. So Let's take a break and then on the other side I've got some other questions about robots. Back in a minute.